AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS.

Waipa Post, Volume IV, Issue 198, 25 March 1913, Page 4

AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS.

GRASS VARIETY TRIALS. Mr G. de S. Baylis, Field Instructor to the Department of Agriculture, is, according to the Wairarapa Times, anxious to establish grass variety trials in the Wairarapa. Th«se experiments, states Mr Baylis, consist in sowing in separate plots several varieties, each in a plot by itself, of one-eighth of an acre of the commoner varieties, and of much smaller areas in the case of very rare or expensive grasses. Each group would consist of sixteen to twenty varieties likely to be suitable to the district. About two to two and a half acres of land would be required altogether. When thoroughly established, the plots could be grazed from time to time. The object of the experiment is to note the behaviour of different grasses in different parts of the district, to discover those most suitable to each, .and also those most permanent. Notes would require to be taken from time to time as to which varieties stood cold or heat or drought best, which started to grow earliest in the season, which threw most winter feed, which died out. after the first, second, or third year, and which proved themselves most suitable to the district. Absolutely clean land was required in order to obtain good results. The best and only satisfactory method to carry out these experiments was, in Mr Baylis's opinion, to skim plough quite shallow in the summer season and fallow, and thus destroy the couch and other weeds present. In the early autumn the land should be ploughed up, let lie a bit to me low, th -n worked up to a good tilth, 0!! d with a Cambridge roi e--, 1 id s i-v-i :1 < vi ■as early in niu: mi in- toe - * : 1 will per mi:. Mr Bavhs i dso d:>, - >u; ait farmer? in rti ■ N >rth Vai .'■: -pa should continue to can;.' out autumn and spring exo liments. For autumn -xperiments he suggests oats in variety, wh.'at in variety, rye corn, bine •. grasses in several pure /arletie;;, temporary pastures in mixtures, and permanent pastures in Mixtures. For the spring experiments he recommends the following : Green feeds: Maize, sorghum, millets, thousand-headed kale, Buda kale, Jersey kale, cow cabbage, chou Moellier rape, silver beet, and mixed forage. Legumes : Clover, peas, beans, soya beans, cow peas, and lucerne. Cereals: Oats, wheat, and barley. Roots: Mangolds, turhips, carrots helianti, swedes, Kohl rabi, and potatoes.