354 



Journal of Agriculture, Victoria. 



lo May, 1911. 



also an extraordinary one. W'e escaped 

 the usual summer spells of heat, 

 and had only an odd day now and 

 then when the temperature was suffi- 

 cient to cause comment. During the 

 latter part of the summer, the 

 weather was more like that of 

 an Australian spring than summer. 

 Grass is green and abundant. Fruit 

 trees and Cootamundra wattles have 

 come into bloom, and altogether the 

 weather during March was rather 

 w typical of October. Heavy rains 

 A have been frequent. During the 

 H first two months of the year we 



2 had approximately half the previous 

 year's record. 



*-* These circumstances, while they 

 ^ were conducive to a larger yield, 

 g prevented the uniform ripening of 



3 the berries. It was also very 

 3 difficult to get a satisfactory sugar 

 ^ strength for wine-making, and all 

 g round the wine has had to be 

 3 made wdth grapes below the usual 

 ^ percentage of sugar, and of a 

 ^ most irregular ripening. The heavy 



. rains, too, caused considerable losses. 

 § Berries burst, became mouldy and 

 j^ damaged the bunches. It was 

 ■j quite common to find on the same 

 ^ bunch, green, ripe and mouldy 

 '^ grapes. 



^ The birds, as usual, demanded 

 g a heavy toll of our crop and 

 ^ this in spite of bird scarers. This 

 ^ season, the Friar birds, or Leather 

 > Heads, were particularly active 

 J and aggressive and had to be shot 

 a in numbers. One satisfaction is 

 z ours, and that is we suffered less 

 o this season from human thieves 

 than in former years. This is 

 not, one ventures to think, due to 

 any moral improvement in that 

 section of the community re- 

 sponsible for such losses, but 

 may be accounted for by the more 

 vigilant watch kept. We did lose 

 in this way, and then not so much 

 bv the grapes actually eaten as 

 by the unripe bunches wantonly 

 destroyed by being plucked and 

 thrown on the ground. 



