THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, MAY 13, 1930. WEALTH FROM PASTURES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20562, 13 May 1930, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, MAY 13, 1930. WEALTH FROM PASTURES.

Prefacing his address to the Rotary Club yesterday by a brief comment on the nature of its membership, the Governor-General remarked that though 42 occupations were represented, that of the farmer was not included. Yet the subject His Excellency chose was not in the smallest degree inappropriate. It is inconceivable that there could be any such gathering of New Zealanders, especially • a gathering composed primarily of business men, that did not appreciate fully the importance of pastoral pursuits to a community far vaster than that directly engaged in them. As if to demonstrate what the product of provincial grasslands meant to Auckland in particular there had appeared yesterday morning figures setting forth the dairy yield for ten months of the current season. In ten months the Auckland Province produced 121,910,000 pounds of butter-fat, valued, on an anticipated average payout of Is 3d per lb., at £7,019,000. But to give the occasion a further touch of appropriateness there appeared also the complete Dominion figures for the 1928-29 season, as compiled by the Government Statistician. These totals, 257,99G,0001b. of butter-fat, representing aggregate payments to suppliers of approximately £20,000,000 are almost astronomical figures, especially considered in relation to the population of New Zealand, and to the proportion of it engaged in dairy-farming. Both accounts of the dairying industry illuminate the importance of the grasslands of New Zealand, which the Governor-General made the subject of his address to the Rotary Club. The dairy output is only part of the return from these wide pastures. It is enough, however, unaccompanied by statistics showing what wool, mutton, lamb and byproducts mean, to justify His Excellency's observation that without grass, New Zealand would perish. On the subject of grassland management, especially the modern conception of it, which treats pasture grasses as a crop to be cultivated with as much care and system as any other, Lord Bledisloe speaks as an acknowledged authority. No speaker handles a subject before the British Association for the Advancement of Science unless he has established his claim to deal with it authoritatively. Lord Bledisloe was the author of a paper on the intensive treatment of grassland, read before the association at Glasgow in 1928. The pastures, not only of Great Britain, or of New Zealand, but of the Empire are an asset the magnitude of which is not always realised. The Imperial Economic Committee, reporting in 1926 on the dairy production of the Empire, said:—"The grass crops of the Empire are not less important than its cereal crops. The grass lands of the Empire support 200,000,000 head of cattle and .200,000,000 sheep. ... In the year 1924 the cereals and their products imported into the United Kingdom from .Empire countries wej'e valued at £53,000,000, whereas the value of the imports of the products of the grass crops—mainly meat, wool, hides and dairy produce—was no less than £157,000,000." These figures tell only part of the story. They leave out of account the yield from pastures reserved for domestic consumption in the countries of origin—including the whole output from the grasslands of the United Kingdom—and the amounts sold in other markets. Thesd, especially as regards wool and hides, would ddd a very great deal to the total. The whole situation establishes what any advance in the management of grass crops would mean to the Empire. The subject is almost as wide as the field for its application. As the Governor-General placed it on record elsewhere, the twentieth century seems destined to witness a revolution in grassland husbandry comparable with that of the nineteenth century in livestock husbandry, and of the eighteenth in arable husbandry. New Zealand should be in the forefront of such a movement, for reasons already given. The Dominion is fortunate to have a Governor-General so capable of urging and inspiring that development. Advances have already been made in the direction Lord Bledisloe advocates. The value of butter-fat produced for the current season has reached its phenomenal level because of higher production, and in spite of lower prices. The new records created year after year for a time past by the dairying industry have been based on greater yields from land already devoted to dairying, rather than on an increase in the area under pasture. This, in fact, has been characteristic of the whole pastoral industry. A survey 1 of livestock production for 2(3 sea-' sons, from 1901-2 to 1920-27 was' issued by the Department of A<;ri-j culture in 1929, This showed thaiwhile the total grasslands fanned, had increased by 11.7 per cent., the] total output of lamb, mutton, wool, J butter-fat, beef and calf products] had increased by 130.7 per cent. | The production per acre, had more than doubled, and the production per unit of stock carried had risen by just over 37 per cent. Many factors, of course, contributed to these results. Of the more recent ones, familiar to everyone, the process of | herd-testing on the dairy farm, with culling, is of great importance.

There can bo no doubt, however, that better management of pastures stands high in the list, if not top of it. This again is suggested by the prominence given in recent seasons to regular top-dressing with fertilisers of proved value. Gratifying though the progress has been, it docs not justify slackening of effort. The Imperial Economic Committee, in the report previously quoted, warned (he dairy fanners of the Empire that intensified competition from various foreign countries could he expected in the future. To meet it without danger to their standard of living they were urged to achieve greater efficiency in production. .By heeding this, by heeding such advice as the Governor-General is so eminently qualified to give,, they can not only serve themselves, but serve the Dominion. The reaction of their success would be as valuable a contribution toward the cure of these economic ills expressed by unemployment as the equally essential process of increased settlement, of a wider area of development. Thus for his address to the Rotary Club His Excellency chose a subject of vital importance to those present, as to the whole population of New Zealand.