TRANSVAAL GRAZING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13456, 8 April 1907, Page 6

TRANSVAAL GRAZING.

INQUIRY FOR NEW ZEALAND

GRASSES.

[BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

CHBISTCHTJRCH, Sunday. There is at present in Ghristchurcb a visitor from the Transvaal, Mr. .G. de Sandford Baylis, of the Agricultural Department of that colony. One object of his visit i? to collect seeds of New Zealand grasser for trial at the. experimental stations in tho Transvaal. Speaking to a Press representative as to the state of agriculture in tho Transvaal Mr. Baylis said the high veldt, with an average elevation of roughly from 4000 ft to over 6000 ft. forms the chief stockraising area in the Transvaal. The native veldt of these high regions, although possessing several valuable pastures and forage grasses, hardly includes one variety which will afford green pasturage during the winter months. Practically all the native grasps become much burnt and withered by the frosts in tho winter season. That season is the rainless period of drought, last. ing some tour or five months, with clear, cloudless skies and often cold winds. Home two months, According to locality and altitude, there is hard frost at night with hot sun during the day, and the effect is to burn up the whole of the veldt, the native grasses becoming brown and withered. The Agricultural Department is making extensive experimental investigations, and is anxious to place on i'« list the grasses and forage plants suitable to tho various districts and climate of the Transvaal, arid in such variety that farmers may be enabled to choose therefrom a sufficient number t > form a mixed pasture, .suitable to their especial district, yielding their maximum growth, not, as in the ease of a pure pasture formed of one variety during one or two months in the growing season only, but containing grasses coming into season during, if possible, each and every month of the period of growth. The ability to root deeply appears to bo generally necessary to enable a plant, to draw upon the subsoil moisture through the long period of winter drought., and seeds which will germinate in tin? presence of a small amount of moisture, as a Nile, have been more successful than those requiring a protracted season of humidity in which to complete tha* process. Mi. Baylis states that the seeds of the New Zealand native grasses which he has collected will bo tested by the Transvaal Department at their chief experimental station, and. he would lie exceedingly grateful to any practical graziers grazing natural pastures in New Zealand who may possibly have made repeated obse-rvi-.tions of some of the grasses in their pastures as to their relative feeding value. their ability to withstand frosts, drought, o: heat, their periods of maximum growth, their special habitats, soils, altitude, and climates.