712 Agricultural Journal of Victoria. 



land. It is only necessaiy to place the cotton-wool containing tlie 

 organisms in water, and by the addition of nutrient salts also 

 provided, after standing for about 48 hours the solution is ready for 

 use. Several of these packages have been received and are now 

 being tested on comparatively poor land at Mordialloc, near Mel- 

 iDOurne. 



The growth of leguminous plants is a cheaj) means of supplying 

 the soil with nitrogen and humus, and is particularly valuable in 

 orchards and vineyards. The soils of some of our northern districts 

 do not give satisfactory results with peas, generally recognised as the 

 best all-round green manure plant, so the sour clover {Melilotus indica) 

 was imported Ly this Branch from Arizona, U.S.A., where it succeeds 

 remarkably well and takes first-place as a winter-growing green 

 manure for orchard j)urposes. Tests at Dookie in the North-East and 

 at Ardmona in the Goulburn Valley have so far yielded promising 

 results. This year, near Melbourne, seed sown early in April had in 

 two months' time furnished a thick growth nearly eighteen inches 

 high, and is quite unaffected by recent heavy frosts. 



Diseases of Plants. 



After this ra])id survey of experimental work, which has for its 

 object the increase of production, the improvement of quality and a 

 greater choice of fodder-] )lants for dairying ])urposes, I now come to 

 the special subject of this address, the Diseases of Cereals, for while 

 new varieties of plants are being tried and new fodder-plants intro- 

 duced, attention must always be paid to that character which enhances 

 their value and is also a test of their suitability, and that is freedom 

 from disease. The subject of disease, whether in plants or animals, 

 is not an attractive one, and is generally considered by the average 

 farmer as something beyond his control, but I hope to show you that 

 some of the worst diseases to which plants are heir are amenable to 

 treatment, when the nature of the disease is properly understood. In 

 this genial climate of ours, with its quickening influence on all kinds 

 of growth, and the absence of the snow-blanket of Canada or the 

 frosts of winter to compel enforced rest in vegetation, there lurks the 

 danger from various pests. 



There are few, if any, crops grown on a commercial scale which 

 are not subject to various ailments, which considerably reduce the 

 yield, but there is this compensating advantage that it has compelled 

 us either to produce varieties which resist the disease or to investigate 

 and study the cause of it, so that we may be able to counteract its 

 effects. 



I am happy to say that by well-directed effort in the field and the 

 application of scientific methods in the laboratory we are able, 

 generally speaking, to minimize, if not actually to prevent, the 

 injurious effects of many of these diseases. 



The Diseases of Plants have only been seriously studied within 

 the last thirty years, and it is not to be wondered at that there are 

 some which baffle both the so-called practical man and the scientist. 



