CHAPTER V. 



MANAGEMENT OF PASTURES. 



Animal products are as a rule more highly concentrated 

 and therefore more valuable than vegetable products, so 

 that while meat may cost sixpence per pound and butter 

 a shilling, wheat costs less than a penny per pound. In an 

 agricultural country, then, far from its markets, so that the 

 cost of carriage is considerable, animal products are likely 

 to be the chief form of agricultural produce. Grass is the 

 cheapest form of animal food, so that we might have ex- 

 pected that in New Zealand with its generally abundant 

 rainfall and mild winters, pastures would occupy a very im- 

 portant place. This expectation is borne out to a striking 

 degree in the following figures : 



TABLE I. 



Acreage in grasses and other crops (1910-11): 



The largely preponderating area under grass, and the 

 further consideration that a grass crop is intended to 

 occupy the ground for at least three or four years, makes 



