FARM JOTTINGS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 106, 8 May 1933, Page 10

FARM JOTTINGS

PRE-WINTER TOP-DRESSING. On all those farms on which adequate top-dressing has not been carried out earlier one of the most important matters w’hich will commonly call for attention in April and May is suitable top-dressing of pastures. The importance of such top-dressing is linked with the following fai*s:— (1) Unnecessarily poor yields of meat, wool .and butter-fat, * and increased ravages of disease both may be attributed partly to poor feeding of stock in winter and early spring. (2) It is now too late to adopt some of the most useful measures for economically making sound the feed position in the critical winter and early spring period, and thus top-dressing, the main .suitable measure which remains available, intensifies in importance. In this connection phosphates are of outstanding importance. Quickly acting phosphates applied in April or early May may be expected to bring about an almost immediate increase in the rate of grass growth. This would often result in stock entering upon the severe part of the winter in better condition, and further, throughout much of the winter and early spring the autumn top-dressing will cause increased grass-growth, which will assist to check unduly rapid falling off in condition. When the critical spring period is passed, the influence of fertiliser applied in the autumn is partially exhausted, and so the rush of feed in late spring and early summer that often follows early spring top-dressing does not occur. As this rush of feed frequently leads to inefficient utilisation of the surplus growth, its absence is commonly a distinct blessing. EVENING GROWTH RATE. ’ To sum up, the fundamental merit of pre-winter top-dressing with phosphates is that it tends to even out the rate of grass-growth throughout the whole year, and, as a rule, manures are used to the best advantage on New Zealand grassland when they do this to the greatest possible extent. The period during which the fullest advantage is obtainable from pre-winter top-dressing is drawing to a close, and especially in the colder districts any considerable further delay in carrying it out is distinctly undesirable. If topdressing is not carried out until close to the season when grass-growth is at its lowest point, then the top-dressing approximates in its ultimate effect to spring top-dressing and some of the value of pre-winter top-dressing as described above is lost.

When it is necessary to spread topdressing over both autumn and spring it is usually preferable to select for the autumn dressing pastures which are relatively well drained, well sheltered, and rich in rye-grass. This is because such fields are better fitted to respond to stimulation under cold conditions. Pre-winter top-dressing is preferable at times especially in sheep farming, because the dressing of broken or rolling country tends to be more difficult and costly after winter rains have made the land soft. CALIFORNIAN THISTLE CONTROL. Conditions are now ideal for the application of sodium chlorate to Californian thistle. The leaves are still visible and' the moisture on the ground will dissolve the chlorate and carry it down in to tho ground. Dr. F. W. Hildendorf, of Canterbury Agricultural College. Lincoln, commenting upon the necessity for farmers to take advantage of the present conditions to eradicate this troublesome weed, said that the chlorate could be applied iu solution, but that it was easier to apply it dry. Just sprinkle it over the patch at the rate of about two ounces a square yard. Care should be taken that the treatment is carried out to cover an area well outside the outmost plants in a group, as often neglect of that is followed by a patch of thistles thriving on the untreated outskirts in the following season. AGRICULTURAL MARKETING. Replying for the Government in the second reading debate on the Agricultural Marketing Bill, Mr. Ormsby-Gore said that Socialism provided no alternative to the Bill. Socialism had been proved in practice to make a hash both of production and distribution. The Government believed that if the State itself went into business, either as a landowner or a middleman, it would make a failure and ha.sk of it. Government business was the Crown Lands Department, yet the income account showed receipts of £32,697 and payments of £66,886 on the farms in hand. That was a loss of £34,000 on the nationalised farms. AH over the country land was steadily deteriorating as an inevitable consequence of the fall in prices. In this Bill the Government were, quite frankly, building on lhe foundations laid by Dr. Addison in his Bill. The catastrophic fall in agricultural prices was the major cause of industrial unemployment. They had got to shed Victorian economics once and for all and go forward to the organisation of markets and a world planning in these matters. That would bo the great thing that would prevent the hideous spectre of State Socialism coming about. The Government were quite determined that it. was impossible to expect producers in this country to work marketing reform successfully if at any moment they could be overwhelmed by unexpected gluts of imports. But while Clause 1 gave powers to the president of the Board of Trade, the Government meant to continue wherever possible to work by voluntary agreement with tho foreign countries, as had been done in the case of meat and was being negotiated in the case of butter. It would only he in exceptional cases that there would be final reference to the Board of Trade for executive action. It was quite obvious that they could not have import control regulations without corresponding marketing regulations for the home product.