PASTURE MANAGEMENT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18263, 5 December 1933, Page 9

PASTURE MANAGEMENT

(To tho Editor of the Herald.) | Sir,—What Mr. Hevvlitt said in his paper on grasses last September is quite contrary to Mr. Ei. Bruce Levy s statement. Whom are we to believe? Mr. llewlitt complains of the stock not thriving on and not eating the perennial rye grass with a relish. That is what the plain farmer requires for the stock to thrive and not be everlastingly looking for something hotter to cat, in other words, contented. Now it makes little or no difference what the stock eat, it, is a question of what tho stock can digest and that point is absolutely ignored by the agrostologist. lie goes on to sav: “Jn every case the stubble is bare of’clover.” Exactly so. I have pointed that out to .numerous farmers on the Poverty Bay Hats and have shown them in every ease, where the clover is, it is eaten hare; and why? For the reason that the stock prefer clover to rye grass. The stock to get at the clover are compelled to cat the rye grass. But where the rye grass is on its own, there it is left untouched ami goes rusty and absolutely becomes worthless. Therefore it stands to reason that the stock only eat it because they are compelled to or else starve. And lie finishes up by stating: “1 he true perennial calls for more specialised management.” Then what value can it be to the ordinary plain farmer who does not reckon himself to ho a specialist? I I should like to ask the agrostologist a few simple farm stock questions, which 1 hope he will not take as an insult. Why is it that 35 two-year-old station heifers in the month of July refused to eat perennial rye grass, but preferred drv maize stalks? Why is it that 1 heard a man say that when he took his few cows off the maize stalks and weeds and put them on a fresh hit. of perennial rye grass they went back in their milk nearly half? Why is it that last Christmas when 1 had ICO ewes with about 80 per cent, of lambs feeding on a 6 acre pasture with seven different pasture plants, that I could leave the two gates wide open leading into my maize paddock (8 acres) and they never offered to go out, yet when 1 asked my farmer friends to do tlie same, they flatly refused ?

Why is it that a man coming to work after Christmas saw tho gates open and came back and asked me if I knew it? I replied, did you see any sheep in the maize, and he said no. Then I said what harm can there be; those gates have been open for a week. Why is it when I bought last- April over 200 lambs at Matawhero sale and put them on a perennial rye grass paddock they would not feed,, but only moped about? A lady and her family happened to come on the Sunday and in her presence and the family those lambs were turned into another rye grass paddock, not one lamb would feed. Then they were turned into the paddock containing seven different pasture plants and every lamb started feeding at onee. One more and I hope this will satisfy him and you all. I had a boy aged 10 with me each autumn. I took him round and pointed out to him the lambs laid down quiet and contented oti the t> aofe paddock and then took him to a perennial rye grass paddock and asked him if he was a lamb how many mouthfuls lie would like of it, and he replied, ‘not one.’ Then I asked him how many mouthfuls he would like of the other and ho replied thousands and thousands. We came home and had dinner and when we had finished I said, ‘now you must pack up the plates and dishes and clear away,’ and the reply came back fast, ‘I must first lio down quiet and contented like your lambs.’ Mr. Agrostologist, do you understand so well as that hov did? So. am 1 not justified in asking, whom are we to believe? —Yours, etc., A. KENT.