PASTURE COMPETITIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1931, Page 4

PASTURE COMPETITIONS.

The most satisfactory feature of the official reports upon pasture competitions in Taranaki is that the entries this year have shown a very desirable increase. To become a competitor necessitates a certain amount of extra trouble for the farmer in the shape of recordkeeping, care in regard to the amount of fertiliser used and other details. Judging comes at the busiest period of the year for the dairy farmers, but so convinced are those in Taranaki of the value of the competitions that attendances upon judging days have been better than ever. Most important of all, the judges report a distinct improvement in the pastures themselves. There is still much room for progress in this direction, but that it has reached the present stage is good for the individual farmer and for the district, for good pasture management shows that it is not only worth while from the point of view of increased returns but also that it need not mean very much, if any, additional expenditure to bring about better results. The old ideal of settlement used to be to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew previously. To-day the slogan is to grow two blades of better grass than those that now comprise a pasture which is not giving the returns it can be made to afford. The only way to counteract the effect of low prices is by low cost of production. There seems no way by which production costs can be more quickly reduced than by pasture improvement and herd-testing. In Taranaki recognition of these two tried and reliable methods is increasing rapidly. If the experience born of better management convinces settlers of the wisdom of sub-division of areas too large for proper supervision and utilisation part of the problem of finding land for closer settlement will also have been solved. In the meantime competitors and the officials who have shown so much enthusiasm in the work of pasture improvement may be congratulated upon the results achieved.