60 

 CHAPTER 7. 



VACANCY PLANTING. 



The necessity for carrying out this important opera- 

 tion invariably engages the earnest attention of every 

 Planter sooner or later, and much surprise and disappoint- 

 ment are generally occasioned when it is found that even 

 with care and attention to all ordinary planting rules that 

 " supplies" frequently refuse to " take" as readily as was 

 expected. The operation of planting-up old land under 

 any circumstances is always attended with a great deal of 

 trouble and all who have tried it, are at once convinced that 

 much still remains to be learnt. Even the most scientific 

 authorities find a difficulty in defining the laws accurately, 

 which are involved in this abstruse problem of Nature's 

 economy but it is well to know, that every description of 

 Planter, experiences similar difficulties, and although much 

 persevering research and enquiry have been conducted the 

 reason why land that has been once cropped with certain 

 classes of perennials refuses to grow supplies or a second 

 stock of the identical variety of species with the same readi- 

 ness and freedom, is not at all well understood. Hundreds 

 of reasons may be urged, but in argument, one after the 

 Other, rarely stand the crucial tests of scientific investiga- 

 tion. 



The subject is generally shrouded in mystery and is 

 one well deserving of further enquiry. Some authorities 

 are of opinion that exhaustion of, or predilection for, parti- 

 cular elements of plant food, is the cause, while others chink, 

 that after a certain species has been produced for some time, 

 that certain structural alterations in the physical conditions 

 of the soil are induced. The danger here lies in the chance 

 of mistaking an effect for the cause. Where a plant, or a 



