TOP-DRESSING

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 118, 13 May 1932, Page 6

TOP-DRESSING

ENCOURAGING RESULTS A remark made by a Rangitikei farmer that “top-dressing has revolutionised farming in the district and has altered nearly all pur preconceived ideas and practices, and we are only just beginning to learn our farming afresh,’’ sounds an exaggerated statement when first head. Consideration will show, however, that the revolution which is being accomplished is so striking in its results that there is much truth in the remark, writes Mr. R. A. Wilson, D. 5.0., Marton, in the “New Zealand Journal of Agriculture.” The basic reason for the rapid extention of top-dressing is the high value of the return obtained compared with the. cost of the fertiliser and labour used to produce it. “One farmer has increased his annual production of fat lambs by about 700 by applying annually 30 tons of superphosphate. This at £5 a ton for the super and 25/- a head for the fat lamb, means that a return of £875 has been secured at a cost of £l5O. To put it another way, an increase of 700 lambs has been secured at the cost of 120, or about 1/ per cent, of the return. Looking at it in anothei’ way, it has taken about 30 tons of manure at £5 a ton to produce about 11 tons of lamb selling at £75 or £BO a ton. On my dairy farm at Himatangi the figures as quoted later show that an application of 15 tons of manure annually has produced an increase per anuum of about 4 tons of butterfat, which sells at the present time at about £l5O a ! ton. This is about the same proportional result in weight as just given for fat lambs.”

• The above figures, are of course, not meant to show that a net profit of these surpluses of return over expenditure is being made. In the case of fat lambs there is the cost of the ewe to be considered, and in the case of the dairy cow the labour of milking to be provided for, and before a balance could be struck in. either case many other factors would have to be allowed for. These considerations do not, however, affect the main issue— namely, that topdressing is profitable.