758 Journal of Agriculture. [10 Dec, 1910. 



Further argument in favour of deep preparation should scarcely be 

 necessary. 'i'hose still in doubt may, however, ask themselves if it be 

 logical to suppose that the vast sums expended on the work in the warmer 

 parts of P^urope, as the outcome of centuries of experience, are merely 

 so much money wasted ? And to rem.ember that scientific opinion has, 

 without exceptic.'i, not only confirmed but emphasized the views arrived 

 at !)y generations of practical men. 



Looking at it from a purely business standpoint, a very small increase 

 in yield is needed to pay interest on the money spent on proper prepara- 

 tion— ;say, ;^3 to ;^5 per acre. Instead of the few shillings required 

 the increase will certamly amount to several pounds. 



Vines will, no doubt, grow and bear fruit on inadequately prepared 

 land, but, to ask them to do their work under such conditions would be a 

 return to the haphazard, thriftless methods of the past, which, not only 

 in viticulture, but in all rural industries, must gradually give way to in- 

 tense culture. 



Exceptions. — Only two cases are admitted by French authorities as 

 being exceptions to the universal rule of deep prepartaion. One is the 

 class of hillside soils known as Garrigues. Here, the surface soil, shallow 

 in depth and often mixed with small stones, overlays deeply fissured 

 limestone rock, into the crevices of which the roots can readily penetrate. 

 Soils which can be compared to these, although the geological formation 

 is widely different, are to be found in North-eastern Victoria. On some 

 of the Silurian hillsides, near Rutherglen, for example, in what, at first 

 sight, appear to be very dry situations, vines grow luxuriantly on ground 

 which was neither trenched nor subsoiled. The subsoil, however, is a 

 mass of broken rock more or less intermixed with loose soil. The con- 

 ditions are much the same as in the French Garrigues, and deep prepara- 

 tion does not appear to be more necessary in the one than in the other. 

 The .second exception is where permanent underground water is to be found 

 at a small depth, a case not frequent in Australia. 



Deep Working for Irrigation. 



The above applies to situations where artificial watering is not possible. 

 Even in irrigated vineyards, deep preparation is most certainly to be recom- 

 mended, though the fact is not yet generally admitted in our irrigation 

 districts. No doubt, heavy yields can be, and are being obtained, on 

 land which was simply ploughed to a depth of 6 or 8 inches before being 

 planted. It is under these conditions that yields most nearly ai)proaching 

 those of Herault are obtained in Victoria.* Nevertheless, the quantity 

 of water used is lavish and the number of applications greater than is 

 desirable, and this often on soils physically most suitable for irrigation. 



Better quality fruit is undoubtedly obtained if the final watering is 

 given as long as possible before the grapes ripen. In many of our pre- 

 sent irrigated vineyards the vines hold out signals of distress, in the way 

 of wilting foliage at the hottest time of year, and compel the giving 

 of a watering, not long before the grapes must be gathered. The unde- 

 sirable effects of such a course may not be very noticeable in the case 

 of dried grapes, though, even here, the better the fruit the better the grade 

 obtained. In the case of table grapes, and more particularly of the 

 shipment of fresh grapes, an industry as yet only in its infancy in Aus- 

 tralia, and which has an enormous future before it, the injurious effect 



• Yields of 3 tons to the acre of dried currants have been obtained at Miklura, equivalent to nearly 9 tons 

 per acre of fresh fruit. 3,000 galls per acre, a very heavy yield near Montpellier, would, on the basis 

 of 77 per cent, of wine, be equivalent to 17 tons of fresh grapes. 



