IMPORTANT TO DAIRY FARMERS.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 116, 27 September 1895, Page 2

IMPORTANT TO DAIRY FARMERS.

The Feilding Star says :— *• Mr Young, manager of the New Zealand Dairy Union, recently from Australia, addressing a meeting of farmers on Wednesday evening at Bunnythorpe, recommended more artificial boding of stock. He strongly advised them to grow amber cane, as it was a specially valuable fodder plant. Apropos of these remarks we may mention that a largo number of onr settlers are sowing the seed of this plant just now, a local trial last season having proved eminently satisfactory. ’ The amber cane is a newly acclimatised fodder plant, is a species of sugar cane ana, consequently, rich in feeding properties Milch cows fed on it give an increased yield of over twenty * live per cent, both in milk and butter. The cane has been used by fanners in Australia for years, with most remarkably satisfactoy results, as not only does it increase and enrich the milk supply, but pigs fed on it do marvellously well and produce excellent bacon. All other stock are equally fond of it. Sown in September or October, according to nature and situation of land it produces from forty to sixty tons of fodder per acre, flie first cutting being ready about December, and the second in March, while it then lasts as green fodder well into the winter months. About 251b is sufficient to sow an acre. The experiment is worth trying, even if only a square claim or two be planted at first, and seed for a trial may be obtained' from Mr W. Cowern, Patea.