Variety of Prairie Grass for Pasture.

At Ruakura can be seen certain plants of this grass which Mr Green has grown from seed selected from a chance plant, of which the habit of growth was deeper in the ground, and the shoots spreading out flatter than in the case of ordinary prairie grass, which has an upright, tufty growth. The individual plants from the seed of the closer-growing kind, which reproduce this characteristic in the highest degree, will be preserved and bred from, always discarding the plants that revert to the ordinary type, until a special type is established which will be able to hole its own in permanent pasture, under grazing conditions which are not too severe. There is a very reasonable hope that this result will be brought about by patient perseverance. In any case the trial is well worth making, and it could never be made anywhere else than at an experimental farm, not carried on for immediate commercial profits. I have merely cited this as an example of the valuable kind of work that is being carried out at Ruakura State Farm, and which is liable to be ignored by the casual observer, whose criticism is apt to be as casual as his observation.