SOIL FERTILITY

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3181, 24 May 1932, Page 8

SOIL FERTILITY

A VALUABLE HANDBOOK. In the annual report of the Department of Agriculture for 1929, it was stated that the increase from grassland products between 1901 and 1921 was £15,000,000, while for the period 1921 to 1929 a further increaes o± £13,000,000 was shown. The full significance of the latter increase can be realised only when it is remembered that very little new land was brought into production during the period it which it occurred. In other words the factors chiefly responsible were improved management and the intelligent use of fertilisers. It is only lately that the problem of maintaining and increasing soil fertility received the attention that is its due, for previously the natural fertility of the soil was adequate to meet all needs in the way of growing root, fodder and cereal crops of pasture. To-day, the maintenance of that fertility is one of the greatest factors in the prosperity of the country. Messrs Kempthorne, Prosser and Company, Limited, therefore pay_ attention to vital issues in publishing the "Fertiliser Handbook for New Zealand," which forms a worthy successor to their volume, "Profitable Fertilising in New Zealand," published four or five years ag'o. Agricultural and pastoral practice is essentially a progressive quantity, and the new handbook embraces the latest and most valuable information to be had on these matters. Taking cognisance of new trends, it admits the dominating importance of grass and the need for efficient pasture management on the grounds that a high standard ot grassland fertility means greater prosperity to the farmer and to the Dominion generally, and that lower prices for primary products demand that every acre yields to its utmost capacity. The needs of root and other crops are stated and extensive sections are devoted to the uses and effects of the various classes of fertilisers in common use in the Dominion. The farmer will find in this book a compact and complete guide in the fundamental principles of manuring in both grass and arable farming. He will obtain his information without having to sift it from a mass of technical and scientific detail, and, what is more to the pointi, he will have the knowledge that what he reads carries the hall-mark of reliability.