PASTURE HARROWING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19308, 8 October 1932, Page 16

PASTURE HARROWING

SOUTHLANDER IMPRESSED. A Southland farmer who recently visited the Waikato was greatly impressed by the methods of pasture management, particularly as regards harrowing. Tough pastures which we would consider only fit for the plough were wonderfully rejuvenated by being practically torn to pieces by one of the heaviest grass harrows at present on the market. One successful farmer who practised drastic harrowing stated as his considered opinion that if one half of a paddock were thoroughly harrowed and the other half''were treated with a topdressing of 3rwt. per acre of superphosphate, the harrowed part would give equal results in feeding. A Scottish Agriculturalist with a lot of letters after his name says that half the value of top-dressing is lost unless the pasture first receives a thorough harrowing. One of the chief agencies in promoting soil fertility is the soil bacteria, and by allowing air and sunlight to penetrate the surface soil their activities and numbers are greatly increased. Water-logged soil is death to their activities, and a striking example of this may be found in swamp land. If swamp is thoroughly dried a year or two before being ploughed the resultant crop is usually heavy, but if it is ploughed before the drying has time to take effect, the crop has a blue, stunted appearance. Besides stimulating soil bacteria, proper harrowing acts as a weed eradicator and makes more room for the better grasses. In the grass family nature has, for the most part fitted the better quality grasses, such as ryegrass, with roots which grow downwards, whereas the bent and couch families have spreading roots. It naturally follows that the cutting tyne of a grass harrow in passing through the surface soil, will do much more damage to the spreading roots of the inferior grasses than it will do to the others. Grass harrowing is like working the mechanical turnipthinner, one requires educating up to j it, as what to the inexperienced may | appear a mess is really what is needed 1 by the crop.

The London elementary scnools show a drop in number of pupils of 129,995 as compared with just before the war. This is due to the falling birth-rate.