The Value of Rape.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 8277, 19 October 1905, Page 7

The Value of Rape.

Mr Gardiner, a practical Taranaki sheepfarmer, speaking of the value of rape, says that even it he did not keep sheep at all he would always sow rape on the bare fallow for its fertilising value alone. This, of course, is quite in accordance with science, which teaches that the rape crop adds a large amount of humus to the soil when it decays, and thus greatly improves tho waterholding capacity of the ground. That being so, it can be very easily apprehended how much greater the advantages are in also utilising the rape for lamb fattening, when buyers for the freezing works are regularly exploiting the country every spring for the purchase of fat lambs, with delivery taken on the farm. Mr Gardiner testifies to having

fattened at the rate of 18 Shropshire merino

crossbred lambs per acre during the last months of the past year. This is cvithat will bear thinking over as regards the selling profits from the sheep and t_e fertilising effects on the land. Together with 4lb of nipe per acre Mr Gardiner also in H2lb per acre of superphosphate, many regard as an unnecessarily heavy dressing; however, it has to be renumbered that this fallow is the land that early in the following year is to be sown with the wheat crop, and his experience is that it pays well, first in starting the rape into luxuriant growth with the earliest spring rains, and second in the after-effects oa the cereal crops which follow. In addition to this, there is the fertilising effect of fie rape itself, together with the manurial value of so thick a grazing as IS lambs per acre. Mr Gardiner's land in the natural state is only up to a grazing average of one sheep per acre, yet the wheat crops average. 2i bushels, and his oats 40 bushels per aero, because they are all grain, so absolutely clear is the land. This latter is an important point to the credit of the weed-clearing work of tho sheep. As with Mr Gardiner, so also is it with Mr Arthur Murphy, who,

in addition to wheat-growing, is largely interested in the export of sheep and lambs. He states that from one paddock of 100 acres of rape (drilled in on the bare fallow) h3 fattened during October, November, and December of the past year at the rate of 16

to 18 lambs and sheep per acre; also that

he finds two succeeding crops of wheat and

oats from the rape fallow always the 4fe heaviest, which means yields of from 20 to 23 bushels of wh.at, as compared to an average of nine bushels per acre. While increasing the flow of milk, the tendency of rope to flavour milk more than any grain feed led the Wisconsin Experiment Station to investigate its effect on the quality of cheese. The rape was cut and fed to the cows in the barn each day while fresh and green The cows were kept during the night on good grass pastures and in clean stables during the day. Rape was given each cow on the day preceding the making of the cheese. The results were quite striking. The cheese made from rape-fed milk presented loth offensive odour and taste, but the longer the period of feeding extended, the better the quality of cheese produced, with reference to flavour, indicating that (he cows tended to adapt themselves to thi; feul, eliminating the bad flavour. The body, texture, colour and general make-up of the cheese was not affected in any nwnn?r by the feeding on rape. In tests of other feeds cabbage was found to produce a disagreeable flavour, as did also green clover when fed in large quantities. Green forage and corn, however, produced a most excellent quality of cheese, fine texture and high flavour.