GRAZING VALUES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20162, 24 January 1929, Page 5

GRAZING VALUES.

DETERIORATING LAND.

AN ANALYSIS OF CAUSES.

HINTS FOR TREATMENT. KY H.B.T. I have looked in vain for any. original idea in Government land policies regarding the handling of deteriorated land, and more important still, the prevention of still more land corning under that undesirable heading. This is vitally important, for it means that the further development of our most important industries is limited to the the improvement by better methods of farming and by closer subdivision of our first and second quality lands, while this increased production will be more than counterbalanced by an ever-growing area of third-rate land which will revert to scrub and fern.

Of my knowledge I can assert that there are hundreds of blocks of light country in the North Island alone which twenty years ago profitably carried thousands of sheep, yet which to-day will not support a tenth of the number it did. In trying to locato the cause or causes of this rapid deterioration in the grazing capacity of land which I have known through a number of years, I have tried to think back to the " old days " when the country I refer to turned off its thousands of sheep in the pink of healthy condition.

Tho sheep were in the " pink of condition," therefore there can bo 110 suggestion that the country was overstocked, and tho pasture thus killed. Rabbits, while probably accounting for tho rapid deterioration of a great deal of the South Island country, were not, except in a very few localities, such a serious pest in the North Island. Fire—the continuous burning year after year of all grass, tussock and fern that would carry a blaze arid scorch the country—has undoubtedly been responsible for a great part of the deterioration evident wherever one goes in the back country. It is, however, also true that much of this burning, which ultimately killed the soil by burning out of it tho humus, was necessary from time to time to clean up the country and get rid of the mat of old and dead grass and other vegetation which cumbered the ground. Wrong Breed of Sheep Carried.

Much of this burning of open country was necessitated in the old days because we carried the wrong kind of sheep. The Merino, which was practically the only sheep grazed in the early days of sheepfarming in New Zealand, is not a forager. It will not push its way into scrub and fern, or even into rank-growiDg grass, preferring rather to starve on the open and close-grazed patches where the feed is at least sweet. Continuous burning and the use of Merino sheep, the former largely necessitated by tho latter, aided in some localities by the depredations of rabbits, are, I think, mainly responsible for the deterioration of most of our open grass and tussock land, and to-day, to a slightly lesser extent perhaps, these methods of farming are still causing a reversion to rubbish in place of grass. It must be remembered that 011 our back country, particularly, practically all our Hocks are based on the Merino. For a comparatively few generations only they have been bred toward Romney or Lincoln, neither of which breeds are renowned for their fossicking qualities. If wo are to prevent a further encroachment of scrub and fern on our backcountry grazing land which is still carrying sheep, although not at its original capacity, it seems obvious to tho writer that we must make up our minds to develop a different type of sheep altogether from that which is popular at present. In Wales and in the Highlands of Scotland much tho same type of poor, ferr. and heather-covered land has been grazed for generations, and is apparently carrying moro and better sheep to-day than it did a hundred years ago. This has been accomplished by evolving sheep of different types —in Wales, the Welsh Mountain sheep, the Kerry Hill sheep, and some of tlie other breeds not so well known, and in tho north the Herdwich and the Highland Blackface sheep. These sheep aro possibly not models of what a mutton sheep should be in carcase, nor arc they renowned for the weight of their fleeces, but they do live under the extremely hard conditions which they are called on to face, and they do produce some profit off land that would be otherwise useless. Sheep to Fight Fern and Scrub.

From tho very nature of tho country 011 which they must find a living, theso breeds have become determined foragers, pushing through scrub, fern and brambles to obtain tho scanty blades of grass or young shoots from ferns and shrubs. Two or thrco of such small and enterprising sheep could be carried on back country whero wo now carry one Romney-Lincoln-Merino cross, and all the time they would bo opening up tho fern, and beating back the manuka by cropping close tho rank grass and young shrub plants which aro now left unmolested by the sheep employed.

Together with tho introduction of sheep of breeds that will fight the encroachment of fern and scrub on this land, much could bo done by a more extensive and more intelligent system of subdivisional fencing. Shady places, which aro now seldom if ever traversed by sheep, and are consequently becoming more and moro densely covered with rubbish, could be fenced off so that tho sheep aro forced to graze them. Again, every man who grazes such country should mako a point, every year, of saving grass seed from some paddock which is representative of the bulk of his holding. Then, whenever a burn was essential, ho would havo suitablo seed on hand to sow on the ashes of the burn and thereby provide at least some grass that, would tempt, the sheep and cattle to feed through the growth which would come again.