530 J oiirnal of Agncidtnrc. [lo Aug., 1909. 



Victorian Experiences. 

 Already a beginning has been made in several parts of Victoria at sheep 

 and lamb fattening with oats and chaff taking the place of the American 

 maize and lucerne hay. The oats are found to he fully egual, if not 

 superior, in fattening value to maize, and if the oaten hay is not quite 

 equal to lucerne hay, it may be anticipated that, under Mr. Mead's 

 pushing forward of lucerne growing under irrigation, the production of 

 lucerne hay will steadily increase. Those farmers who are fattening with 

 oats explain that the oat crop is one that they have to grow, as it is the 

 staple cereal of the southern districts, and an essential crop in the wheat- 

 growing rotation of the north. The proneness of the land in the wheat- 

 growing districts to grow wild oats has been the reason for the most suc- 

 cessful men not taking off more than one wheat crop after fallow, which 

 of course means, wheat one year and fallow the next, or only one crop of 

 wheat from the same land every two years. It is now found that two grain 

 crops can be safely and profitably taken off after the one fallow bv making 

 one of them oats. A feature in this practice is that the objection to a 

 second crop of wheat after fallow, with regard to the difficultv of keeping 

 the Land clean, does not exist in the case of an oat crop. In the one case, 

 the weeds get the better of the young wheat after sowing, and in the other 

 the young oats get the better of the weeds. Then, again, tho.se who have 

 tested this practice as.sert that there is always a good oat crop after wheat. 

 Thus, the best rotation is found to be wheat after fallow, oats after wheat, 

 then a year or two out under grass ; then fallow after the grass, followed 

 by wheat again, and after that oats, and .so on w'ith the fallow, wheat and 

 oats and the grass, as before, while the manures put in with the crops are 

 found to greatly improve the grass and herbage that follows the crop years, 

 both in quantity and quality. Those who are adopting this system of 

 rotation remark that evidently an oat crop takes a different class of plant 

 food from the soil to wheat. In the fact that oats are shallower rooting 

 than wheat may he found some explanation of this. Consequently, taking 

 into account the advantages of the oat crop rotation in its greater certainty, 

 as a second grain crop after fallow, as compared with wheat, alike in weed 

 cleaning, yielding and benefiting the .soil, this is found to be remunerative 

 practice, even in the value of the oats as a grain crop alone, not to sjieak 

 of the sheep feeding profit. 



Feeding in the Sheaf. 

 There are two methods adopted in feeding the oats, the one feeding in 

 the sheaf and the other manger feeding. As a representative example of 

 the sheaf feeding sy.sten.. Mr. G. \\'. Wallace, of Kamarooka, between 

 Bendigo and Echuca, may be nientiont'd. Mr. Wallace first resorted to oat 

 feeding in order to tide his sheep over the (lr\ months which often occur 

 between Januarv and May. His jilan is to feed the cro]) in sheaf form, 

 and in order to do this he har\fsts the bay on the green side after it has 

 come well into ear, so as to de\elop a good kernel of grain. In this way 

 he finds that the sheep do l:>e.st, because they get the oals ami the hay to- 

 gether in such proportions of grain and stem as to do them most good. In 

 carting out the hay from the stack, a rough estimate is made that the 

 .sheaves run on the average about 7 lbs. each, and on this basis the loads 

 are distributed through the parldocks according to the number in each, at 

 the rate of half a pound per head ; that is. grain and stem together. Thus 

 each sheaf of 7 lbs. ])rovifles a dail\ {vi-([ lor fourteen sheep. The 

 sheaves are dropped off at intervals ol a few yards apart, as the load is 



