THE CULTIVATION OF PERMANENT PASTURES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2949, 21 September 1910, Page 6

THE CULTIVATION OF PERMANENT PASTURES.

The same problems face the farmer all the world over, and Agricultural papers of Great Britain and other European countries frequently contain articles impressing on farmers the necessity of at times renewing old pastures where possible, an/ also drawing attention to the neglected condition of a great deal of the pasture lands. In this Dominion the Experimental Stations are showing us how to improve our grass Lands, and in this direction the Department of Agriculture is doing good work. The farming journals of New Zealand are also placing before tne rural community the latest reports from different parts of the world, showing what should be done to improve the pastures. In the old European countries it is not to be wondered at if the field;? have got "run down," but the same thing also applies to Australia, and New Zealand. The Chief Veterinary Surgeon of Victoria recently called the attention of farmers and stock-breeders in that State to the matter, and said that •the important point to dwell upon was not the actual fertiliser to be employed, but the absolutely urgent necessity of realising the foolishness of attempting to establish and maintain permanent grass land on a starvation ratio. There is a big drain on the phosphates of the land when young stock and milking cattle are used to graze down the tiasture, said the authority mentioned, and this has to be made good, otherwise the grasses will run out, and he enforced his arguments and teaching by referring to the results obtained at Rothamsted, the experiments carried out there having exercised a wonderful influence all over the world. The various species of grasses are differently stimulated by particular manures; even among the grasses themselves such a difference of habit as a deep or shallow root system will determine to which manure" the grass will respond. The aspect of any meadow represents the results of severe competition among the various species represented. The dominant, species are those most suited to their environment—that is, to the amount and nature of the plant food in the soil, the water supply, the texture of the soil, and other factors. If any of these factors he altered by manuring in different fashions, the original equilibrium between the contending species is disturbed ; some species are favoured, and increase at the expense of the others, until a new equilibrium is attained, and the character of the herbage from a botanical point of view is completely altered. The fallacy of the belief that grass land is not responsive to fertilisers is showr. by a glance at unmanured plots which have become so impoverished that weeds have come to form nearly 50 per cent, of the produce. On one portion of a plot at Rothamsted farmyard manure was applied annually for the first eight years, at the rate of" 14 tons per acre, and the good effects of it are still to be seen in the yield after a lapse of many years. Experiments have shown that when nitrogen was applied singly and continuously, the effect was to squeeze the legumes out altogether. The plot manured with ammonium sulphate became sour, and did not yield so well as the nitrate of soda plot. The superiority of the Latter is probably due to the fact that it sinks deeply into the soil, thereby encouraging deeper-rooted plants, which are better able to obtain moisture and nutriment in times of drought. And, further, the soda helps to make potash available. At Rothamsted, on another plct on which phosphoric acid only was used, the grasses and clovers have "run out" to an even greater extent than on the unmanured plot. This illustrates the result of continuous single manuring. An occasional dressing of pbosphatic manure gives a striking result, because plenty nitrogen and potash are lying latent in the soil, but when pensistentlv applied, weeds usurp the place previously occupied by nutritious grasses. The omission of

potash from the manuria! dressing oeasioned a reduction of about per cent, in the yield, a continual loss of fertility, and a diminution in the proportion of clovei and allied plants. To get a pasture with a good thick bottom and a variety of different species of nourishing herbage, it is necessary- to encourage the growth with a well-balanced manure containing ammonia, phosphate, and potash. The results of experiments already made known are sufficient to furnish every progressive farmer with the latest information of the way to improve his perma : nent and other pasture lands.