BROFITABLE FARMING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15646, 27 June 1914, Page 4

BROFITABLE FARMING.

WINTER FEEDING. FODDER AND ROOT CROPS. [BT OrK SPECIAL COJIJHSSIOKEB.] The handsome prices obtained for wool and mutton and the strong evidences of. a farther growth in Hip demand for both, direct attention to the profitableness of sheep-farming. There are rmny ways of increasing these profit-?, not only by means of judicious selection of slock and close attention in flock management, bat by the practical one, now under consideration, of providing improved feeding conditions. Under pasture grazing alone there la usually during the greater number of months in tlio year a superabundance of good grass feed, giving excellent results, on which sheep thrive satisfactorily. Grass is the natural food of sheep, and they prefer good grass to anything else. But for a few mouths in most years sheep have to put up with feed whoso growth, when it is at all forthcoming, is usually innutrition?, unsuslaining, and inadequate in the- maintenance of sheep condition. Substitutes for grass are then greedily devoured by them. When stinted in feed sheep nut only cease making progress, but arc liable through lowered condition to disease, and, in the. case of ewes, they fall short of their marked reproductive capacity. Four features spelling loss intrude themselves. Condition-making flags, discaso may enter the flock, deaths ensue, and the liberal natural fecundity of the ewe sheep is handicapped. All this is In conflict with what rational feeding would bring about. It is even in conflict with an animal's own ability and predisposition towards the natural law of self-preservation. As man provides food for the unfruitful seasop, t:likewise do most animals, except the predatory carnivora. The bee, the beaver store up for the "inter, and many other of the lower creatures and insects. Even the sheep, in its state of nature, where it had unfettered chance to do tho best for itself, resorted to more genial winter quarters where suitable feed would bo forthcoming, just as tho members of the deer family and wildfowl migrate at tho approach of winter. The Lean Tims of Year. Anything grown in the direction of tiding sheep over the lean time of the year is a much more profitable practice in New Zealand, looking at it strictly from the point of trouble, than in any country in the world. Sheep conditions with us are so favourable there is less period of pasture shortage than in England or America, where fodders have to bo so extensively grown for sheep, and thero is better and more equitable rainfall than in • tho other sheep countries of Australia, South Africa, and South America. Shortly, there is less period of natural feed shortage to be provided for in New Zealand. And thero is so much spare timo available on a sheep farm that it can well be devoted to the growth of crops in supplementation of the most libera! sustained pasture growth in the whole world. Eliminating Waste. Tho New -aland sheep-farmer with ploughable land can with the most profitable prospects and confidence engage in growing suitable forage crops, and thereby largely increase his carrying capacity per head returns from his shop and his land values. Ho can first seo to fencing his ringed areas into suitable-sized paddocks to have a change to clean feed for his sheep at all times when on the grass and to economise its use. With largo paddocks a great deal of feed at the time of vigorous pasture growth is wasted one way or another. The sheep scurry over and trample a lot of most valuable feed, and by understocking in the summer to provide against winter overstocking a lot of it runs coarse, wiry, and useless for sheep consumption. A sheep, to keep it going well all the year round, will consumo some two tons of herbage growth, or two sheep four tons. But it is sate to say that two sheep to tho acre land will grow quite eight or ten tons' weight of herbage in a year. Waste is what hap* pens to tho rest, and an experiment proving tho actual loss might well bo conducted by one of the Agricultural Department's stations. If paddocks are of a proper size and grazed thoroughly, ono after the ether, it allows of less waste and heavier carrying ability, which may bo further increased by the growth of forage crops. Tli« cultivation of such special crops by the farmers generally would lead to New Zealand deriving almost fabulous wealth from her great occupation of sheep-farming.

Suitable Forage Crons. Tho first and foremost provision to make in growing forage crops is for the winter shortage of pasturo growth, and for tho unsatisiaetorincss of the spring growth, when had weather and slushy, innutritions food are bad friends of lowconditioMc -1 stork. In a minor degree an occasional try summer spell las to bo considered. Laying by a bit of hay or a patch of the most valuable lucerno will meet this infrequent but sometimes costly visitation. It takes a very small quantity of hay, with plenty of good water, to see sheep through a drought, Tho forage-growing sheep-fanner's main consideration is the winter and early spring time, aud if by his efforts all of these considerations are nut and ids paddocks grazed consecutively in tho summertime, there is no reason why his 500acre sheep farm, with . ; <">::io ploughablc land, at present carrying, say, some 750 sheep, may not be made by cultivation of 50 acres"of special crops to carry double, that number. There are many crops to chooso from to grow, and all of tho following can be profitably grown on most ploughable New Zealand land, some, according to each locality's climatic adaptation, belter than others:—Hay, rape, turnips, mangels, oats, peas, vetches, Cape barley, kale, mustard, silver beet, Italian ryegrass, lucerne, (lover. Silage is led profitably to sheep in Australia. Hay and turnips or hay and mangolds an 1 , good basic foods for sheep. They will put condition on to them, and will sen ewes over their maternal troubles in jood fashion. The constipating .effect of k>y fed alono is counterbalanced by tho laxativeness of the roots, and tho hay neutralises tho effect of feeding on such, watery foods as roots by themselves.