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Viticulture. 



By P. F. Adams. 



-The following paper is designed to sliow tlie capabilities, in botli soil 

 and climate, of New Soutli Wales as a wine-producing country ; that 

 the pests to which the vine is subject to are controllable, and to give 

 reasons why the wine trade is not more prosperous, and suggest the 

 remedy : — 



Soil 



In soil. New South Wales possesses all the elements of a great wine- 

 producing country. 



Commencing in the south, the valley of the Murray is formed of 

 hills of Silurian formation, abounding in the most important elements 

 of mineral plant-food — potash and phosphate. Even in the alluvium 

 of the river these elements are in such abundance that, taken together 

 with the nitrogenous matter of the alluvium, vines planted therein will 

 go on producing heavy crops for twenty years without manure. 



Here and iu the Upper Murrumbidgee Valley are thousands of acres 

 of land capable of producing the thin wines required for making 

 brandy. By the adoption of viticultural machinery, and judicious 

 design in planting, the maximum quantity could be harvested with a 

 minimum expenditure of labour. Yet until legislation removes existing 

 restrictions nothing can be done in distillation, and these unrivalled 

 capabilities remain in abeyance. 



The foot hills adjacent so abound in potash, lime, and phosphate, 

 that they only require nitrogenous manure or humus in small quanti- 

 ties to go on producing crops for all time. 



The only di-awbacks to the upper valleys are late frosts, but the 

 fertility is so great that if two crops out of three are harvested the 

 result will be greater than that of most other districts. 



Lower down, the valleys of both rivers open into undulating ground, 

 possessing all the principal mineral elements, and at Corowa the soil 

 is further enriched by nodular concretions of sulphate of lime. 



The wealth of these valleys lies in the natural endowment of the 

 very mineral elements which are the most expensive to supply arti- 

 ficially. 



Travelling northerly, the country rises, and the tablelands are too 

 cold for viticulture; but on their western border a margin, ranging 

 from 50 to 100 miles, exists, all more or less suited to the vine. 



At and around Forbes, on the Lachlan River, the watershed of that 

 stream embraces a considerable area of soil well suited to viticulture, 

 although not to the same extent as iu other western valleys — again in 

 consequence of the encroachment of the high tableland thereon the 

 area is limited. 



