Jan. 2, 1908.] Agricultural Gazette of N.S.W. 83 



matter in tlie «oil. The fact that tlie harvest this year in most districts is 

 an early one will possibly ali'ord tliose fanners who do not systematically 

 plan to do this, an opportunity of doing so, in connection with the land 

 to be fallowed next summer. There is every probal>ility that this land, if 

 ploughed early, can be cropped in February, March, or April with rape 

 or tares. These crops, after being fed oft' at any time from May to 

 September, will leave the soil richer in humus, and the surface soil richer 

 in plant food than if the ground had been spelled all winter. These plants 

 are deep rooters, and obtain a proportion of the plant food used by them 

 from depths below the feeding area of the wheat plant, which has a com- 

 paratively shallow root system. This plant food is used to build up their 

 leaves and stems, and when these are ploughed in, becomes mixed wnth the 

 surface soil, and so is rendered available for the next wheat crop. Such 

 crops are very valuable, for they serve a double purpose in that they 

 furnish a valuable stock feed, and they also enrich the surface soil with 

 plant food obtained from the subsoil, and with organic matter obtained 

 from the air. 



It is advisable to manure these crops, so as to encourage their growth as 

 much as possible, and especially as there is fairly conclusive evidence that 

 if the manure be applied to these crops, it is unnecessary to apply it with 

 the following wheat crop. There need be no fear that the manure will be 

 lost before the wheat crop can use it, for with these crops growing on the 

 land, there is less danger of plant food being washed out by the winter 

 rains than if the land were uncropped. 



On fallowed land these crops can be planted with a reasonable amount 

 of certainty, and this year the early harvest affords an ojijiortunity of 

 their very probable success on unfallowed land. 



Some growers thiidv that the rest which fallowing entails is beneficial to 

 the land in the same way that sleep is beneficial to animals ; and these may 

 fear that cropping in the way suggested will exhaust the ground, and 

 lessen the yield of succeeding crops. Such fears are quite groundless, for 

 it will improve the ground and increase the yield, whilst bare fallowing, 

 though its immediate effect is the production of better crops, really 

 exhausts the soil. One point brought out in a general way by experiment 

 work is that continuous cropping on right lines makes land fertile, whilst 

 injudicious cropping impoverishes the land. There is abundant evidence 

 in this and neighbouring States that the system of cropping recommended 

 is on the right lines. 



