EXHAUSTION OF LAND BY DAIRYING

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1678, 27 April 1904, Page 65

EXHAUSTION OF LAND BY DAIRYING

There is an opinion abroad, especially among bullock and sheep men, that dairy farming exhausts the soil at a rapid rate in the form of phosphate© carried off in the milk. It is a comparatively easy matter to show that this is a mistaken idea, though it is a very widespread one. "When the amount of phosphate of lime carried off by the different kinds of live stock is reduced to pounds per acre per annum, it will be found tihart there is comparatively little difference between them; a growing ox, a sheep, and a milk cow will remove from the farm 41b. 4.21 b and 4.51 b respectively of phosphoric acid per annum. In the case of a fatting ox, which is not supposed to remove anything at all in the shape of fertility, it will be found that while t-lie droppings of such are about one-four-teenth richer than those of a milk cow, yet, because of the extra litter used for bullocks, the dung carried out to the fields will" actually be richer, ton for ton. from the cows than from the bullocks when the feeding is the same. Of course, where cows are not fedi properly there will he a loss, hut in tliei vast majority of cases, where from 61b to 121 b 'of concentrated feeding stuffs per head daily are used, the pastures and the arable land of the farm generally will gradually improve in condition —a reisroltV which thousands of dairy fair mart have experienced all over the country. When we consider the case cf the crops, however, there is an enormous balance in favour of the cow. A crop ci 30 bushels of wheat removes in the grain alone 141ib of phosphoric acid, while most of the other crops remove far

more. Thus, ordinary crops of the following kinds—wnere the straw, top®, haulm, etc., are kept on the farm—remove phosphoric acid every year as follows: —Beaus 22, ciovor lxa-y 25, turnips 22, mangolds 34, potatoes 35ib. Of course some of these are consumed on the farm—perhaps to • feed cows- —but the fact remains that the removal of a crop from the held it grew on involves the removal of the above quantities of fertility as against that sold off in milk.