CATTLE CABBAGE FOR DAIRY COWS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1290, 19 November 1896, Page 5

CATTLE CABBAGE FOR DAIRY COWS.

Now that the dairying industry is being established in different parts of the colony, and dairymen are alive to the necessity that exists for providing cows with a sufficiency of green food, in order to promote and increase the flow of milk, attention (says the Sydney Mail) is drawn to the cattle cabbage, which is extensively grown in Europe for fodder for stock. It is considered to be the best that can be given to dairy cattle, either in a green state or turned into ensilage, to supply rich food when other herbage is scarce In the colder districts of the colony the cabbage will supply the best winter fodder. After many years of experience in Europe, also in Victoria, it is highly spoken of as a nutritious food, and does not disagree with any kind of stock. The dwarf species, with its stems divided into a number of leafy branches, is preferred to that known as Jersey kale. It is more productive. It will prove a failure in the dry parts, but will succeed in the South Coast districts and on the tablelands. As a winter fodder it should be sown in August or September on a deeply well-tilled loamy soil, manured with lime and farmyard manure. It can be grown in drills 41b or 61b to the acre, or sown in a seed bed and afterwards transplanted. About lib of seed will supply sufficient plants for an acre. When, sown in dr ills these should be 2ft, and the plants thinned out l£ft apart. An experienced grower thus wrote of the plant:—“Cows increase their milk wonderfully when fed with kale cattle cabbage. It is the most desirable of any green crop I have seen. It is a plant that produces more feed per acre than any other, and does not disagree wil h stock or impoverish the land.” The manager of the Bodalla Dairy Company thus expressed his opinion of the kale as a fodder plant : —“ I ploughed up 10 acres of land where a crop of maize had been the previous year. After ploughing, I had it well harrowed, and then with a team of bullocks hooked Lo a cuhivatjr had it worked as deeply as possible. It was then again harrowed and drilled into drills 2Sin apart. In the drills I sowed 3cwt of Fison’s mangold fertiliser and ]-4cwt of salt per acre. Five acres I sowed with mangolds, the other five with Kale The mangolds were thinned to Ift apart, the kale to 30in. The mangolds produced 60 tons 17cwt per acre and the kale 50 tons 4cwt. The seed was sown in the last week of September, and during the first three months were several times horse-u a*d between the drills. 1 valued the crop at 15s per ton, and have been feeding 1600 pigs on it for over two months. The advantage the kale has over the mangold is that it can be cut off’ the stalk and will sprout out immediately, and in two months give another good yield. In the driest of seasons it will continue to grow. In the South Coast country the kale as fodder for milch cows will be hard to beat. If the farmers would only cultivate it, they would be able to carry double the number of stock that they do on maize, sorghum, or grasses.”