164 Lime Requirements of New Zealand Soils 



Manures. As compared with Home conditions, the system of 

 manuring, as with other departments of farm practice, is extensive. 

 No farmyard manure is available except what is produced on the farm, 

 and in only rare cases is special care taken to save that Uttle. Artificial 

 mixtures are universally, but sparingly, used for all crops. All of these 

 are fundamentally phosphatic, and differ from one another in being 

 with or without small quantities of nitrogen and potash. Many come 

 from the freezing works, the basal portion being blood, bone, and organic 

 refuse from the freezing industry. Considerable quantities of phosphatic 

 guano of various grades from the Pacific Islands are used, as is also 

 superphosphate of local, Austrahan, or Japanese manufacture. The 

 average composition of the mixtures offered by eight Southland firms 

 during the 1915^16 season is as follows: 



Water sol. Water insol. 

 Sol. N Insol. N P2O5 P2O5 K2O 



percentage percentage percentage percentage percentage 



Turnip ... 0-19 0-84 2-32 12-84 0-26 



Grain 0-49 1-05 2-25 11-35 0-43 



Rape and grass 0-69 0-84 1-36 11-00 0-97 



The most striking point about the manurial requirements of New 

 Zealand soils is their response to phosphates. The usual negative 

 results from the use of potash and nitrogenous manures is due no doubt 

 in the one case to the large reserves of potash in the soil, and in the 

 other case partly to the richness of our soils in organic matter, and 

 partly to the opportunities for the accumulation of nitrogen which our 

 rotation allows with its lengthy period in permanent pasture and its 

 turnip crops fed on the ground. 



2. The Mid-Canterbury Plain. 



Physiografhy . This district is bounded on the north by the 

 Waimakariri river, on the west by the foothills of the Southern Alps, 

 on the south by the Waitaki river, and on the east by the ocean. 

 The plain has been built up of layers of gravel, sand, and silt derived 

 from the mountains of the west, brought down by the numerous rivers 

 that rise therein, and spread out along the coast^ : consequently the 

 rivers are very rapid and their transporting power great. The average 

 width of the plain is 30 miles, and its altitude at the margin of the 

 foothills is 1200 ft. ; that is, the gradient is 1 in 130. The average 



1 See "Formation of the Canterbury Plains" by Capt. F. W. Hutton, F.R.S. in 

 Trans. N. Z. Institute, Vol. xxxvii, 645. 



