Gisborne Uses Less Manure Than Other North Island Districts

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18366, 7 April 1934, Page 13

Gisborne Uses Less Manure Than Other North Island Districts

I ESS fertiliser was used in the GisL borne land district for the 12 months ended March 3.1, 1933, than in any other district in the North Island. Nelson, Marlborough and Westland were the only land districts in the Dominion to use less. This position is shown by statistics of areas topdrossed published in the last .Diurnal of Agricult lire. A total of 32,073 acres were topdrossed with fertilisers in the Gisborne area, including .1003 acres with linn and 210 s acres with fertilisers and lime, while the next largest user in the North Island was Hawke’s I’.ay "’ith 102,011 acres topdrossed. Auckland had the largest area topdrossed with 910,070 acres, and North Auckland came next with -132,097 acres.

The total area topdrossed with fertilisers and lime in the Dominion was 2,138,114 acres, compared with 2,4.54,3.21 acres the previous 12 months. The use of fertilisers in the Gisboinc district has been decreasing year by year with the progress of the slump, yheepfarmers were beginning to become big users of superphosphate before falling prices of meat and vool made the high cost of fertilisers prohibitive. The words “high cost” refer to the total charges by the time the manure was delivered on the farms and broadcast, tor whore long haulage and many handlings were necessary i.he cost often exceeded £1 an acre at the rate of only 2 cwt. to the acre. However, now that wool and meat are once more back to a fairly payable level, the use of fertilisers on sheep country is starting to become more popular. Some fairly large orders have been put in already, although the total quantity of manure bought to date is not as large as was at first anticipated. It is a start, however, and the good results of past years no doubt, will encourage woolgrowors to revert, to the use of manures. A few men have already ordered sufficient to dress approximately 200 acres. During slump years small purchases by dairy farmers were practically the only business done in fertilisers, and even this business began to fall oil with the continuance of the ruinous price of butte)fat. Orders from sheep men at present have counterbalanced dairyfarmers ’ lack of purchases, anil more fertiliser business has been done, during the past month or so by Gisborne merchants than at the corresponding period last year.