126 PRESIDEN'T’S ADDRESS—SECTION G. 
Such experience as I have acquired, such experiments as I 
have conducted, and such observations of farming practice as I 
have been able to make in South Australia, have in each and 
every case gone to confirm the conclusion that it is a grave 
mistake in these drier areas to delay fallowing until late winter 
or early spring. From the harvest just completed I have had 
a repetition of the common object lesson. A few acres in a 
field were cultivated in the beginning of May, 1898, in July 
and August the field was ploughed in the ordinary course of 
fallowing, and in the harvest of 1899 the part so worked in May 
showed a distinct gain of upwards of 4 bushels per acre. 
Objections are frequently advanced to lifting the land early, of 
which these are the most prominent:—That the growth of 
weeds consequent to this early ploughing is difficult to destroy 
in the spring; that it is desirable to spell teams for a while 
after the heavy work of seed time; that the feed offered by the 
adventitious herbage on the land for at least two months is 
sacrificed ; that there is danger that the land be leached; and 
that in undulating country the winter rains wash out awkward 
gutters. But all these objections together amount to nothing 
serious. Sheep will graze the rank vegetation to a degree that 
it can be scarified; I say scarified, as ploughing back in the 
spring is not often to be recommended, and draught horses can 
be fed to withstand the work. Every sixpence in the value 
of the feed sacrificed will be met by upwards of a bushel of 
wheat in the increased return. The danger from leaching 
even on soils with a porous subsoil is very slight in the absence 
of under drainage, and in presence of the extreme surface 
evaporation that prevails during the long severe summer, when 
the soluble substances, carried into deeper layers by the per- 
colating water, are returned to the surface layers through 
capillary action. The evil of winter “ wash-outs” can be lessened 
by ploughing in the direction of least declivity, and altogether 
the gain in grain will more than sufficiently contra all these 
objections and minor inconveniences unless in very exceptional 
instances. Some farmers in South Australia carry the practice 
so far as to set the ploughs going in summer, and before seed- 
time, on land to be fallowed the following winter, when the 
physical texture of the soil makes it practicable, or when 
summer or early autumn rains admit of the land being ploughed, 
and I have not met one individual who has practised it who 
is not fully satisfied of its utility or financial advantage. Of 
course, this practice must be adopted with judgment, for it is 
possible to have low-lying lands waterlogged in some years for 
a considerable time, and a certain amount of denitrification, 
and consequent loss of nitrates will ensue. 
On the other hand, if ploughing be delayed until the dry 
season is at hand, or has set in, the full possible reserve of mois- 
