The Cultivation of Mustard, &c.

Otago Witness, Issue 1640, 28 April 1883, Page 7

The Cultivation of Mustard, &c.

We (Melbourne Weekly Times) have often recommended mustard an a fodder plant. It has so many advantages, and not the least, in this colony, where high farming ia not the rule, is that it will grow rapidly upen almost any sort of soil. It may also be sown at any season, and if only there be the least moisture it will grow. It is much relished by both cattle and Bheep, and yields a great weight of food. No soil capable of bearing a crop at all is too poor for it, and herein is one of its principal merits ; but, at the same time, it gives a proportionately large return for good treatment, or when allowed a good soil to grow in. For feeding purposes, rape is about equal to mustard, but it will not grow upon such' poor soil. As food' for a dairy, very few plants excel it for increasing the quantity or improving the' quality of milk. It is a pity, but, although we have travelled many mibs this autumn round about Melbourne, we cannot call to mind having seen a single patch of either mustard or rape, but we saw hundreds of cows in a miserably poor condition. Another succulent plant, and one opon which we have often treated, is the vetch, but of this we wrote in an issue or two since. The seedsmen have lately been sending out Italian rye-grass seed. This species of grass has been considered an annual, but in many instances, and under certain conditions, it has proved itself perennial. In England, it needs frequently to be sown with barley, but not so frequently as that better known as the " perennial." In the lowlying rich lands of England > and where sewage can be used or irrigation adopted, the yield of Italian grass per acre is almost incredible, something similar to the rich plots of lucerne in this colony. The above-named ryegrass has frequently been mown every six weeks, and a heavy swarth, too. Italian ryegrass is much relished by all live stock, and, according to the results of very recent experiments, if made into hay, it was universally preferred to that made from common ryegrass. When allowed to ripen its seed, the weight per acre of the latter exeeds that of the perennial, and it is generally believed that the nutritive substance extracted from the herbage affords more saccharine matter than even that celebrated rye-grass known in Europe as "Pacey's." In purchasing rye-grass seed, a little knowledge of the different appearance of the sorts is necessary. The common, both the annual and perennial, are clean seeds, without any awn ; but the Italian has a very small terminal in shape of a short awn at one end ; but there is a most obnoxious weed known as the "goose grass," the " Bromus Mollis," which is so dangerously alike in appearance to the Italian species of rye-graSS that it has not unfrequently been sold in this market for the true Italian. They are easily distinguished if p aced alongside each other. The goose grass is a larger seed than the Italian, and has a longer awn attached to it. Sainfoin or sainfoil, or, as it is called in France, saintfoin or holy hay, is also, or rather has been, recommended ; but we, unlike some people, never could see the merits of sainfoin. It will certainly, like mustard, grow whore nothing else will ; but it is three years coming to maturity in a cool climate, and two years in warmer localities. It loves chalky and limestone soils. Here we have so many superior plants to' choose from, that it is quite unnecessary for our farmers to trouble themselves about sainfoin. The same with chicory as a fodder plant. It is highly prized in certain parts of Europe, and would, no doubt, be advantageous here on a rich, light soil, to be afterwards laid down in grass, but its roots are very troublesome when the land is required for any other crop.