AGRICULTURAL WORK

Southland Times, Issue 21430, 26 June 1931, Page 2

AGRICULTURAL WORK

SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENTS. TREATMENT OF PASTURES. Several matters of interest to the farming community were discussed by Dr. C. J. Reakes, Director of Agriculture, during a visit to the Waikato last week. Dr Reakes said the special pasture experiments at the Ruakura State Farm under the direction of Mr A. Hudson, of the plant research station, were progressing well and were providing some useful information. One point that had been specially noted was that superphosphate applied in June appeared to give the best economic return compared with applications at other periods of the year. Its effect was apparent right through the spring and into the Bummer. Dr. Reakes said there were 48 students at Ruakura. At present there were 416 cattle 2,000 sheep and 193 pigs, on a total pasturage of 800 acres at Ruakura. Arrangements were being made to send a further shipment of 18 carcasses of bacon pigs reared at Ruakura to London, in order to obtain an authoritative report as to their suitability for the British market. The shipment would comprise six Large Whites, six Berkshires and six Large White and Berkshire crossbreds. Further experiments embracing every type of pig bred in New Zealand would be undertaken. Completely successful results had been obtained by spraying ragwort with a solution of sodium chloride, said Dr. Reakes. A paddock badly infected with young ragwort had been sprayed with a 21 per cent, solution, a potato sprayer being used. AU the plants had been killed. Attention was drawn by Dr. Reakes to the fact that rabbits were on the increase in the Auckland Province. He urged farmers to do their utmost to keep the numbers down.

A good deal of progress had been made by the department’s veterinary and bacteriological staffs in Hamilton in their investigations into cattle diseases. The impotency of bulls had been given special attention and valuable information had been obtained.