FALLOWS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19347, 30 June 1925, Page 12

FALLOWS

MODERN PRACTICES (By J. G. Stewart in London. Daily Telegraph.) The term “flallow” is of Saxon origin, meaning pale red or pale yellow, and its application to agriculture is explained by the colour of ploughed land after drying. It implies Hand that is left to rest without a crop after tillage. The idea of rest and recuperation for the land is as old as agriculture itself. The stipulations in regard to fallows in modern leases had their counterpart in the days of Moses, for it is laid down in Leviticus that “the seventh year shall be la Sabbath of rest unto the land” which shall be “meat” for the husbandman, his household, and his cattle. This seems to have been the alternative form of rest, or abandonment to natural pasturage, which has always existed side by side with tilled fallows, land is still resorted to in primitive agriculture. That the practice was a sound one, in the absence of other means of attaining the same end, is demonstrated by the “wilderness” lat Rothamsted. Certain plots there, after many years of cropping, were fenced off from cattle and allowed to run wild. A luxuriant growth of grasses and other vegetation. soon became established, but the most noteworthy fact wlas the enormous accumulation of nitrogen. In twenty years the Broadbalk wilderness would appear to have gained nearly 981 b land Geescroft a little more than 441 b of nitrogen per acre per annum. In the case of the former the herbage included an appreciable proportion of leguminous plants, which were almost entirely absent from the latter. The only explanation that seems at all probable in regard to Geescroft is the intervention of azotobacter, a bacterium which possesses the power of fixing atmospheric mtrogen without any host plant. EXPENSIVE OPERATIONS In modern agriculture common tillage are of various kinds—bare or summer, root or green crop, and half or bastard fallows. All have the same objects in view, the freeing of the hand from weeds and the restoration of fertility. With the introduction of turnips towards the close of the eighteenth century, and the instigation of the four-course rotation of turnips, barley, clover, wheat (combined with the use of artificial manures), the need for an occasional bare fiallow is now mainly confined to the heavy, intractable clays. Even on these certain kinds of roots and green crops, such as mangels, dabbages, and kales, can be, anti arc, grown to some extent, but the necessary operations arc much more costly, and the risk of failure is much greater than on the more friable soils. A bare fallow will cost in labour, rent, rates, etc., from £5 to £6 pcracre, and sometimes a great deal more, besides the loss of a year’s crop; consequently farmers arc impelled to it only by sheer necessity. In 1924 the area of blare fallows in England (excluding Monmouth) was about 350,000 acres, of which the largest proportions were in Essex and Hampshire, with 28,000 and 21,000 acres respectively. In all. fourteen administrative counties had each upwards of 10,000 acres, mainly in the East and South Midlands, where the climate is relatively dry and the soil heavy. This year, owing to the lack of suitable cleaning weather in the summer and autumn of 1924, followed by a mild, wet winter, much of the heavy land of the country has become extremely foul, and the area of bare fallow will probably be increased. The best season for tackling the stubbles with a view to fallowing has been a subject of controversy at least since the time of Arthur Young. Writing in 1771, ho says:

*>his fineness (of tilth) in spring must never be an object, if there is much couch in the land, as the very contrary system of exposing the soil in huge clods to a whole summer’s sun is then most effectual. The great error of the generality of farmers is not distinguishing between these cases (weed seeds and couch), but using that method which is prescribed by the custom of the neighbourhood, indiscriminately, for all sorts of soils, and whether foul with couch or seeds.