RAPE V. BARE FALLOW.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1208, 26 April 1895, Page 5

RAPE V. BARE FALLOW.

" Thistledown " in the Australasian writes as follows: —"Although growing wheat on the fallowing system has still many advocates, there can be no question that the practice is going out of fashion. In average years, by giving the laud a rest for a season and pulverising the soil thoroughly meanwhile, a good yield of wheat can generally be counted'upon. But in following this practice it has to be remembered that two years' labour aud rent have to be debited against the crop produced, and at?* the present price of wheat it appears hopeless to make the returns cover the expenditure. Fortunately there are other methods which can be adopted. Farmers who have irifd the plan of sowing rape instead of the bare fallow, | and feeding the green crop off with sheep, all apeak highly of the improved system, and nothing could now induce them to revert to the old practice, which at the best was expensive and exhausting on the land The advantages of the rape crop must be evident to any farmer with a. receptive mind, or who is not wedded to the bare fallowing custom simply because his father followed it. Rape is easily grown, and in favourable seasons will yield sufficient food to fatten from six to ten sheep per acre in the season. The green crop thus consumed on the land is more enriching to the soil than five years of bare fallow, while the deep tap roots of the rape plant bring to the surface valuable elements from below and render them available for succeeding cereal crops. In mineral or volcanic soils, where therei is an absence of vegetable matter, the mould produced from the decajed roots of the rape is exactly what these soils require to unlock their fertility; hence the farmer who grows rape not only makes money out of his fat sheep, but he enriches bis land at the same time. There are *

several di#eretlt nYetho<!ls of growing a rape crop. The simplest and cheapest it has been found very successful in the driest parts of the Wimniera district—is to sow about 41b of rape seed on the stubble immediately after the first autumn rains,, and harrOw it in. In the Goulburfi V"alley many of the farmers plough the ground before sowing the rape, which gives it a better start h*pm the weeds, and ensures a heavier crop being grown. Others, again, plough the ground in autumn, but do not sow the rape till the following spring. The character of the season has to be studied. Should the autumn rains be late in coming, it is preferable to delay sowing till spring as rape does not grow well in cold weather, but if sown in good time it will afford both an autumn and spring bite for sheep. The price of rape seed is so very moderate that by growing it as directed a farmei may give his land a good manuring &p a cost of about one shilling per acre.