CHAPTER XXXVI. 



HILL PASTURE IMPROVEMENT. 



A great part of the hill country of New Zealand 

 under pasture is devoted almost exclusively to the graz- 

 ing of sheep. In its original state such land presented 

 three different aspects that under bush, that under 

 scrub, and that which was open and bore a covering of 

 native grasses and tussock. The fallen bush lands and 

 some of the scrub lands have been surface sown in 

 English grasses, and the prevalent complaint now is that 

 the carrying capacity of them has receded from what it 

 had originally been, much in some cases, considerably 

 in others. 



That failure to graze cattle in conjunction with 

 sheep has a lot to do with the decreased carrying ability 

 of hill land that had been fairly suitably grassed, the 

 writer is inclined to think there is but little doubt. Of 

 course, if grasses quite unstated to those hills were orig- 

 inally sown it is natural to expect retrogression under 

 any circumstances. 



A note which comes from Scotland with respect to 

 its sheep-grazed hill land is but an endorsement of what 

 is the cause of the decrease in carrying capacity of the 

 New Zealand hill pastures. An English Board of Agri- 

 culture publication on the subject declares that it was 

 found that many hill grazings in Scotland date their 

 degeneracy from the clearance of Highland cattle to 

 make way solely for sheep, and adds that it is not too 

 much to say tha.t proper grazing of all pastures, whether 

 hill or lowland, is at least as important as manure. 

 Constant grazing with sheep alone, the publication con- 



