ROOT CROP GROWING.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 July 1935, Page 4

ROOT CROP GROWING.

The attention to detail given by those who control the South Taranaki Boys and Girls’ Agricultural Clubs, as evidenced in the annual report, is a tribute to their zeal, and it seems a pity that greater support was not accorded the effort to encourage root crop growing amongst the sons and daughters of South Taranaki farmers. The competition last year was by no means a failure, as some of the individual results show, but the substantial decrease in the number of crops offered for judging was hardly encouraging to the controlling officers or the firms that generously supplied the seeds and manures. It is probable, as the annual report points out, that the unfavourable weather was responsible for a number of the competitors losing interest in their crops, but it would be extremely regrettable if, as the report also suggests, the decreasing interest results in the abandonment of the competitions. The value or otherwise of root crops to the Taranaki farmer has for a long time been a matter of debate, and it has been contended that Taranaki on the whole can do without root crops, relying on scientific pasture management to fill its place. It is significant, how-, ever, that in many parts of the province, particularly in North Taranaki, the plough is to-day much more in evidence than it was a few years ago, and there has been a distinct *end towards the growing of root crops as a supplementary winter fodder. Whether 'such a course of action is the best for South Taranaki is a matter for experts to decide after careful investigation, but in the meantime it is to be hoped that the South Taranaki Boys and Girls’ Club competitions will not die an untimely death, but on the other hand will revive in popularity and fulfil the very useful object for which they were instituted.