ON THE LAND

New Zealand Tablet, 9 August 1917, Page 46

ON THE LAND

- - ; . —. » • The Board of Agriculture has been supplied by Mr. C. R. Aston, agricultural chemist, with particulars regarding the amount of potash contained in fern and in the ashes at sawmills, which are now being wasted. He informed the board that he was continuing these investigations, and hoped that some methods might be devised to profitably utilise the potash that might be obtained for manurial purposes from these and other sources in the Dominion. The results of these inquiries it is proposed to publish at an early date. Speaking to a Lyttelton Times reporter, Mr. A. H. Cockayne, Government Biologist, who has been making investigations into turnip diseases, said he had completed a tour of Canterbury, Otago, and Southland. lie found dry rot in turnips fairly widespread in the main turnip areas in the south, but the disease was not so serious as it was during the two or three preceding years. Nevertheless, the loss sustained in the south had been very considerable. The Agricultural Department had made full arrangements to carry out a series of investigations in the Southland district, and it was hoped that some solution of the trouble would be arrived at. The Canterbury district did not, of course, occupy the same important position as Southland in the matter of turnip-growing, and the disease was not anything like so serious in that province.

Can wheat be profitably grown in the North Island? The Hon. W. D. S. MacDonald, Minister of Agriculture, replies in the affirmative. He writes in the Journal of Agriculture to the effect that if promises made to the Department’s officers materialise 40,000 acres will be under wheat where wheat had not been grown before, or where its cultivation had been discontinued. About 12,000 acres of this was new wheat land in the North Island. North Island average yields, from Auckland to Wellington, ranged from 22.97 to 28.12 bushels per acre. At Weraroa the yield had been 50.35 and 30 bushels. “The contention that the North Island generally is not suitable to wheatgrowing,” writes the Minister, “is not borne out by the records of recent years. . . . Excellent crops of wheat were grown in the early days of settlement in those very districts where the cry of unsuitability is chiefly heard.”

The first annual meeting of (he New Zealand Forestry League, formed in Wellington 12 months ago, was held in the Chamber of Commerce, Wellington, last week. The president (Sir James Wilson) stated that already the league had aroused a considerable decree of interest in forestry, and he hoped that before long the Government would recognise the necessity of demarcating- and conserving the forests of the Dominion. Sir Francis Bell, while Acting-Minister of Lands, had authorised Mr. D. E. Hutchins to demarcate the Waipaoa kauri forests, and his recommendations were now in the hands of the Government. Sir James advocated the taking of a census of private plantations suitable for milling purposes, and of the varieties of timber being grown. Speaking of the cost of planting, Sir James asserted that .£8 per acre or even less than that would be the outlay. Private planting should be encouraged. There were millions of plants at Whakarewarewa available for farmers if required. Mr. W. H. Field, M.P., drew attention to the great waste of timber going on, and instanced the case of the valuable Kohekohe Forest, near Wellington. He hoped the league would be aggressive, and press its claims upon the Government. It was decided to arrange a deputation to wait upon the Prime Minister in order to urge the need for a separate department of forestry, with a trained forester in charge, and to ask for a systematic demarcation of the remaining forests. Sir James Wilson was re-elected president.