EFFECTS OF FROST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20639, 11 August 1930, Page 3

EFFECTS OF FROST.

BENEFICIAL ACTION. INFLUENCE ON CROPPING. CHECK ON GROWTH. Tho importance of frost in farming may be difficult to assess precisely, but that its seasonable occurrence is a valuable aid in tho working of tho land, and the raising of bountiful crops, cannot bo doubted. The action of winter frost is twofold in its beneficent influence. In tho first placo it checks tho growth of weeds and hampers tho regenerating processes of parasitic and fungoid pests, and, in tho second, it breaks up tho soil in a manner that simplifies and cheapens cultivation. These influences are basic to efficient arablo farming, stated tho agricultural correspondent of tho London Times, when commenting on a spell of hard frosty weather in England during tho last winter. They aro less effective in tho caso of grasslaud, no doubt, but even the permanent pastures and meadows may derive benefit from tho change and rest which a spell of hard frost affords .in tho dead of winter.

In considering the fanning systems and results in different countries, or parts of countries, sufficient regard is not always had to the natural influences that suggest and determine methods and yields. The wiso and experienced fanner makes his plans in the light of his knowledge of soils and climates. He does not attempt to increase, unduly risks and speculations that arc already, in the best of circumstances, adequate to gratify the desires of (lie most adventurous in land management, but seeks rather to pursue the course that over-ruling natural conditions prescribe for (ho careful and intelligent interpreter of his environment. The intervention, or non-intervention, of frost in timely and - considerable duration and power has probably had greater effect in determining grass <?r rotation farming, as the central feature, than is commonly supposed A Fundamental Factor. The character of the land is a fundamental factor, of course, as well as the rainfall, but the strong and stubborn soils can be made to yield in a wonderful way to the will of the cultivator if his efforts bo aided and supplemented by frost at tlio proper season. But " old-fashioned winters" are now tlio exception, and modern farmers over a great part of England have to contrive to manage without the helping frost, that would seem to have been the familiar lot of earlier generations. The change from hard to sloppy winters, together with other alteration of various descriptions, has driven many farmers from tillage to grass farming as the only means of surmounting the difficulties that have arisen to turn them from the ways of their predecessors. A hard winter is as valuable in arable farming as a warm and gonial summer, and the fact that neither has been the usual experience of farmers in recent years can be held to acrount largely for the defects and disappointments that have marred tillage husbandry in the past few years.

The influence of natural conditions upon farming can be fully gauge ? only by those actually occupying and working the land. Anyone who has fanned where winter frost is of normal occurrence, and also where it is spasmodic and often lacking, will be able to appraise its value as a help in keeping land clean and in a fine state of physical fitness for healthy vegetation. If one wishes to go outside this country—although there is no need to do so—for proof on this point, the Continent provides it in emphatic abundance. When every allowance is made for possible difference in the industry and energy of peoples, there remains the fact that northern latitudes can usually show a record of larger and cheaper production than those outside the domain of rigorous winters. Advantages in Mild Climates.

I had an interesting talk on this point with an intelligent Scots stockman at the Smithfield Show. In the course of his various visits to England this observant Perthshire representative formed the opinion that there were appreciable advantages in farming in the South. It was not exactly a case of seeing the brighter side of another's position and comparing if. with the darker of his own ; he honestly formed the view that there wero fewer obstacles to contend with here than in his own district, and one was that the winteis were less severe. Hut when I asked him how he would like to cultivate even the stiffest soils of the Carse of Gowrie without help from frost, he replied promptly that it could not bo done. lie knew what frost meant in pulverising the land in his own county, and also in curbing weeds, and when ho was assured that wintei frosts were often a rarity in the South he was less disposed to migrate beyond the limits of the more or less regular frost area

Severo winters are not an unmixed advantage. There arc benefits associated with tho milder conditions that go soino way to compensate for tho absence or uncertainty of natural agents in tho working of land. These relate chiefly to catch or intensive cropping and the development of grass farming. The market gardening areas can manage with little' frost because the land is usually friable and easily tilled, and rapid and continuous growth of crops is a fundamental feature in the system. Mild winters are also conducive to inexpensive grazing, and hence tho tendency for tho practice to expand and encroach upon rotation husbandry in many districts. But for the standard British systems of rotation farming, balanced seasons, giving periods oi frost m winter" and corresponding spells of sunshine in summer, are important and when they fail us, as they hav° done in recent years, traditional sequences of staple crops, all hough otherwise still applicable, have bad to be modified or abandoned.