End of Long Trail.

Add to this impression the fact that 11,000,000 acres of this grass rug was wrested from forest jungles by lumbering, burning, clearing, seeding and fertilising…

How much land can be brought into the grass carpet class in that way? About 6,000,000 acres are now grazed by dairy cows, and fully 10,000,000 acres by sheep. I talked with one enthusiast who thought that the dairy lawn might be doubled in ten years…

It's milk that makes the world go round in New Zealand; cow's milk for butter and cheese, and sheep's milk for lambs. And the secret is found in spreading the grass carpet as far as it will go, and keeping it green the year round by close grazing.

How is it done? Let us look first at the sheep runs. Just at the end of the winter season I travelled through a series of hills covered with at least 50,000 acres of continuous lawn, bright green, and in active growth, with the grass at a uniform height of two inches. And not a weed in sight, unless the English daisy may be called a weed. The sheep pastures are speckled with it here and there up to the highest foothills. But the thing which amazed me was that such a large area could be kept short like a perfect putting green, with no tufts of tall grass. On the hills cattle are used as mowing machines to cut down the tall grass, and thus stimulate fresh growths. The cattle clean the range, removing the rough, coarse stuff, leaving smooth lawns of fresh grass for the sheep.