FARMER’S FORTUNE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23002, 3 October 1936, Page 3

FARMER’S FORTUNE

NOVEL FERTILISATION SCIENTIFIC METHODS FOLLOWED (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, Sept. 5. Gossip in British farming circles recently has centred round a Berkshire farmer who made a fortune approaching £250,000 by novel fertilisation methods. At one time he was the largest arable farmer in England. How this fortune was built up was explained at an agricultural conference at King’s Lynn, Norfolk, this week, by Mr C. S. Orwin, director of the Institute for Research in Agricultural Economics, Oxford University. "In 1866, Mr George Baylis began farming in Berkshire, on a farm of 240 acres, in the traditional way for corn, roots, bullocks and sheep,” Mr Orwin said. "After six years he had lost £6OO. In his search after some other method of farming, which would put his balance on the other side, he came upon the experiments of Lawes and Gilbert, at Rothamsted, Herts, which proved that corn could be grown without animal manure, by the application of ammonia and phosphates. Baylis took his courage in both hands, and decided to lake the Rothamsted experiments at their face value by abolishing all live stock from his farming system. “He evolved a six-course rotation, with three corn crops, two bare fallows and a clover crop. In 1875 he borrowed £15,000, and bought a 400acre farm on which to pursue his system. Almost immediately he had to face the great agricultural depression and the slump in corn prices. While his neighbours were going bankrupt or giving up farming, Baylis went on growing corn, making money, and adding farm to farm. Before death he was farming 12,000 acres, half of which he owned, and the only live stock upon it were some 300 working horses. He died at the farm where he started. He had farmed it without live stock for 61 years, and without any visible deterioration.” Mr Orwin suggested that large areas of English grass lands were full of stored-up fertility, which could not be cashed except by ploughing and cropping. There were thousands of acres of grassland which would be more profitable to landlord and tenant alike under a system of alternate husbandry. SPROUTING GRAIN Extensive trials are to be made in Britain this autumn of a revived form of the old practice of sprouting grain as a food for cattle. Maize, barley or oats are soaked in water for 24 hours and then placed in perforated trays, which enable the roots to draw upon fertilisers in solution. The trays are kept in a temperature of 75 degrees for 10 days. During that time the sprouting converts 11b of grain into 31b or 41b of edible matter. Farmers have long known that the feeding value of grain and also of peas and beans is increased by sprouting. Sprouted maize was tested in the feeding of bullocks at the West of Scotland Agricultural College last winter, being substituted for 201 b of swedes each day. The result was that, compared with animals fed similarly except for the sprouted maize, the bullocks in the test averaged a gain of 451 b more. In another 14 weeks’ test the average gain was 571 b over that of cattle not receiving the sprouted grain. It is believed that some chemical action started in the sprouting grain enables cattle to digest their eparse food more efficiently and to extract from it more than they would do otherwise. Pigs have also been found to thrive on sprouted barley and to make greater gains in weight at less cost. Sprouted oats have been used for many years in poultry feeding, particularly when tender grain food is scarce, and increased winter egg production has often been attributed to the oat sprouts. HERRINGS AS CATTLE FEED Surplus herrings from the fish markets have been mixed with dried grass in Sweden this year for dairy herds. The two dried products are mixed in the proportion of 40 per cent, grass to 60 per cent, fish, and the resulting meal is a highly valuable concentrated feed for dairy cows. Fed at the rate of 21b a day, it has been found that the milk yield has been improved and, what is also interesting, the milk seems to have taken on qualities that make it suitable for the production of Brie and other cheeses through the year. In the parts of France where Brie is made, as in the district where Stilton is made, experience has shown that the best cheese can only bo made from ■summer milk, when the cows have fresh grazing. The Frenchman employed as cheesemaker in Sweden took back to France last winter some of the Brie made at Osmo, and the experts could hardly believe that he had not bought the cheese in their local market. The farmer using this feed is convinced that the higher vitamin content of the milk from cows fed on the grass and herring meal will enable him to make fancy cheese of the highest quality for Stockholm and other markets through the year. He mentioned the possibility of consigning his cheeses to London now that there is a daily air service between Stockholm and London. The incorporation of 60 per cent, of herring meal in the concentrated ration of milking cows is a departure which may cause surprise in New Zealand, but it seems that herring when dried by a special method do not taint milk or meat if fed in moderation. In Sweden supplies ot herring surplus to market quotas are available in fresh condition at a very low price to clear the market.