FARMING.

Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 44, 10 August 1872, Page 2

FARMING.

Wrc extract the following- from the report in the ,l Canterbury Press," of a paper read by Mr. J. N Tosswill, at a meeting- of the Lincoln .Farmer's (Jlub ;— I. —PERMA.VK!\'T PASTURE. A few years ago, when b )th sheep and cattle were worth three or four times thenpresent value, when roads were bad, and railroads only talked of, there was a general di - sire to sow land down with English grasses. Men locked forward to the timi when, relieved from the anxieties, uncertainties, and hard labor attendant upon grain growing, all their fields would be in grass, and by anticipation, counted up the profits and rejoiced over the comfortable maintenance which they supposed to be in store for them, iiut, unfortunately, wool steadily declined, and sheep fell to one quarter their former value. Experience, however, proved that pasture, however carefully laid dow.i, in most cases deteriorated rather than improved after the first two or three years, and it became evident, under the. peculiar conditions of our climate, it would be impossible to maintain ordinary land as permanent pasture with any hope of success or profit. Sheep have lately slightly recovered in value, but it is owing to the fall in cattle having created a sudden demand. In a few years, at the present rates of production, it will probably be difficult to find a market otherwise than by boiling down or preserving for a large proportion of our cross-breed paddock stock. I hardly add that under these circumstances the idea of laying down land to permanent pasture has, in many cases, been abandoned. II. —CULTIVATING AS ARABLE LAND UNDER r A ROTATION OF CROPS. It is clear that any regular rotation of crops must imply a corresponding loss year by year of the fertilising properties ot the soil, aud unless they are artificially renewed it must speedily break down. Under the rotations, common in England, such as the Norfolk or alternate system, which consists of turnips, barley, or oats, clover, wheat, or their equivalents, the fertility of the soil is maintained, and even increased, but it is solely by means of the manure applied to the roots and green crops.

This mauure is obtained by stall feeding large numbers of cattle, involving much labor, by feeding sheep upon turnips and hay, aud by occasional purchases of guano, phosphate of lime, &c. The cheapness of labor, and the high price of meat, renders such a system not only possible but highly successful amidst a dens» population like that of England, but as a recent writer in the "Australasian" justly observes " It would be no more possible to farm profitably (in these colonies) by adopting the four-course Norfolk system in its integrity, feeding stock for nearly two-thirds of the year upon, straw, turnips, aud hay, than it would be to pay farm rente in England out of beef and mutton at Australian (and he might have added Australasian) prices. It is the extreme value of meat which maintains the fertility of the English farms, and those who are constantly blaming the colonial husbandman for not following the example of his English prototype, only exhibit thpir incapacity to assume the rode of instructors."