Wattle Culture 37 



rain which falls before the Winter. In the Midlands sowing may 

 immediately follow the harrowing. In the rather colder districts 

 it may be found advisable to do the cross ploughing and harrow- 

 ing later, so that the later sowing will allow the young plants to 

 lie flat during the cold months. The ploughing will seem deep to 

 some readers, but the effect of this during the first few months 

 of growth is enormous. With a shallow four-inch ploughing the 

 whole of the soil turned over will become quite dry during May, 

 June and July after sowing, and root growth will stop. The 

 deeper ploughed ground will remain moist, and allow of the con- 

 tinual formation of a mass of roots which will force on several 

 feet more stem growth during the first Spring. An instructive 

 result of deep ploughing was told to us by one of the larger 

 planters. A steam plough had been used for one area, and had 

 ploughed so deeply that the subsoil had been turned up to the 

 surface from a depth of more than a foot. This subsoil was poor 

 stuff, and the young Wattle plants had a great struggle to get 

 along at all for the first season, being far surpassed by those in 

 land only ploughed 5 inches. In the third year, however, they 

 had not only caught up with their competitors, but had outstrip- 

 ped them by a level four feet of growth. 



Lining-out and Spacing. On this point opinions vary very 

 much, and one sees trees spaced 12 by 12 feet, 12 by 6 feet, 8 by 

 8 feet, 6 by 6 feet, &c. Which spacing is one to adopt? Each 

 planter will swear by his own spacing as the correct one and 

 giving the best results. To get a reply to our question, we must 

 get down to principles again, and we shall find that these are 

 very similar in most ways to those mentioned in connection with 

 afforestation generally. 



We want (a) a, good long stem, free of branches, which will 

 peel easily; (6) thick and healthy bark; (c) quick canopy to 

 kill the grass and reduce the fire risk, (a) and (c) can only be 

 obtained by fairly close planting at the beginning, and the most 

 effective distance would be 6 by 6 feet each way. This will 

 form a perfect canopy at the end of the second season, and will 

 also cause the early dropping of the side branches, and force up 

 the stems into straightness. But we want solidity and thick- 

 ness of bark also, and this we cannot get unless the stem di- 

 ameter increases also. It is probable that 12 by 6 feet espace- 

 ment will give the best yield of bark per acre, and in order to 

 allow of a correct development it will be necessary to thin out 

 every alternate line from the original spacing of 6 by 6 feet, 

 say at the fourth year or so, to allow this process of stem and 

 bark thickening to take place during the remaining four or five 

 years. 



If one of the objects is to produce Mine timber, as well as 

 bark and firewood, the final espacement must be 12 by 12 feet, 

 necessitating a second thinning in the sixth year, and allowing 

 the balance of the plantation to remain standing for twelve years 

 or thereabouts. 



