FARM AND STATION

Otago Witness, Issue 3309, 15 August 1917, Page 8

FARM AND STATION

all the hills and the valleys and fiats in our mountain districts. . . . The common herbage on these runs is silver tussock, with the fine-leaved "blue tussock" interspersed. Mixed with these are a few creeping native herbs and shrubs, and the land carries, say, about one-third of a sheep to the acre. When one looks into tho herbage, one wonders that it carries any sheep at all. The silver tussock is never eaten (except after burning), the blue tussock is only nibbled at, and that only in selected spots. With the object of studying the plants that the sheep really do eat the doctor tells us that some small enclosures were made in tussock land on the upper waters of the Waimakariri and Rakaia Rivers. From an observation of these one finds that, within the enclosures "there is no more silver tussock or blue tussock than outside, so that 90 per cent, of the herbage is never touched by sheep at all. On the other hand a small creeping native shrub (Coprosma repens), and a native plantain something like rib grass, are found to be growing more freely within the enclosures, and in one case a few plants of sorrel and Cape weed had attained a much greater growth inside than outside the fences. There are 10 million acres of such land held under Government leases in the South Island, and it is obvious that much of this country is capable of some improvement. It would matter little what grass was grown—the poorest would give more feed than nothing. Danthonia would be of much greater value than tussock, especially as Danthonia may be easily sown, as Dr Cockayne suggests, by buying sheep off Danthonia country in early autumn. Why is it that in all the 60 or 70 years of occupation of this land no attempt at improving it has been made? We cannot hesitate to say that it is because of the nature of its tenure. A 21 years' lease is not sufficient to justify improvements of the somewhat intangible nature represented by an improvement of the pasturage. If a man increases the carrying capacity of his run his rent is put up at the expiry of his lease, so that he has to pay to the Government interest on the money he himself has invested. This tenure has resulted in holding back the productivity of all the Government land in the country, and Mr Hunt, Efficiency Board Commissioner for Otago, does not hesitate to say that the fact explains the constant drift of young men to the North Island, where Government land is held under lease in perpetuity. One does not approve of the too common practice of running to the Government for aid whatever difficulty crops up ; but this is a case in which Government m the past has done an injustice, and it would be legitimate to demand its removal. The problem, concludes the doctor, interests every farmer in Canterbury (and in Otago), for the more sheep that are carried on the hills the cheaper will be store lambs to fatten on the plains.