RICH DAIRYING LAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17909, 11 October 1921, Page 8

RICH DAIRYING LAND.

THE ORONGO BLOCK.

SECTIONS FOR SOLDIERS.

The Lands Department, in preparing the Orongo block at the north-eastern corner of the Hauraki Plains for soldiers' settlement, is carrying out some interesting work. The area of the block is 2000 acres, and about 700 acres is badly affected with tall fescue. In order to get rid of this grass, which is a danger to stock in its rankness and its susceptibility to ergot, the department is ploughing on a scale undreamt of in that locality before. Five motor tractors are at work, three under the Lands Department and two under contractors, turning furrows roughly 7in. deep and 2ft. wide, and at the rate of 2£ acres a day. The large size and width of the furrow are necessary in order to bury the fescue stems, which in places are 6ft. high. The success of this operation and the exceptional richness of the soil is indicated by the fact that 150 acres ploughed and put into grass last May without aay manure has been carrying equal to two head of cattle per acre, and one paddock of 17 acres carried 50 bullocks for three weeks in September, which is usually a bare month.

Mr. James Drysdale, late manager of the Weraroa State Farm and the prison farm, near Te Awamutu, who is in charge of the operat : ons, says that in his opinion the Orongo block is one of the finest large areas of dairying, grazing, and fattening land in the Dominion. The whole blocis of 2000 acres is as level as a billiard board. He believes that with a little provision for dry seasons and for winter the land will readily carry a dairy cow and a-half to the acre, so that on this one block alone there may be carried enough cows to keep a large factory going. About 15 sections are to be opened for returned soldiers at the end of this month, and it is expected that the whole block will be available by the end of this year. The land is being cut up into sections of from 40 to 50 acres, so that there will be nearly 50 new farms established before long. Mr. Drysdale, who has had very wide experience of farm lands and farming, expresses the opinion that the capabilities of the Hauraki Plains soils are not vet fully appreciated, and that with more up-to-date methods of farming the productivity of the land, remarkable as it is, could be largely increased.