FARM LANDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. .S7 



General Treatment. 



Speaking generally, the defects to be remedied in these soils are sourness, 

 lack of humus, and poverty of plant-food. The remedies for these defects are 

 the following: — 



Cultivation. — Deep and frequent cultivation is one of the most important 

 means of ensuring good texture and of sweetening the soil. Its object is 

 to disturb the surface soil, partly to ensure aeration, partly to enable it to 

 absorb rain, and partly to bring it into such a condition that it will draw up 

 water and keep it in circulation. A well-cultivated soil is in a better con- 

 dition to withstand drought than one where the surface has been allowed to 

 become hard and compact. 



Drainage. — The question of drainage is one that must be decided in each 

 instance by the individual conditions. So much has been written on this 

 subject, and the matter has been so well and practically treated of, that I 

 shall not attempt to do more than insist upon its importance in maintaining 

 the texture of the soil. In the case of orchards the best results are practically 

 out of the question unless the land is suitably drained, unless it happens that 

 the natural drainage is sufficient. 



Liming is the most important operation on the soils of County Cumber- 

 land. They are naturally, as has been several times insisted upon, remark- 

 ably deficient in lime, and exhibit all the defects due to this deficiency. Of 

 these, sourness is the most apparent, and perhaps the most disastrous. 

 Now, also, that our farmers have awakened to the importance of using 

 artificial fertilisers, it is important that this fact should not be lost 

 sight of, since a good deal of disappointment has resulted in using fertilisers 

 which are themselves acid, such as superphosphates or mixed fertilisers 

 containing superphosphates, on soil which is itself often quite strongly acid 

 (sour). A previous treatment with lime, or mixing lime with such a fer- 

 tiliser (provided it contains no ammonium salts), is essential if the manure 

 is to exert its full benefit. For such sour soils the best phosphatic fertiliser 

 is probably Thomas slag, a manure which only requires to be more cheaply 

 obtainable to be largely used. 



Green Manuring. — The importance of green manuring and the principles 

 underlying its beneficial action are more fully discussed on page 73. 



Too little attention is paid to it in this State, where the soils are on the 

 whole poor in humus, and where farmyard manure is so difficult to obtain. 

 For reasons which will be discussed subsequently, green manuring, besides 

 providing humus and thus improving the texture of the soil and rendering 

 it more suited to w T tihstand drought, possess the additional advantage, if 

 leguminous crops are employed, of enriching the soil in nitrogenous matter, 

 an essential fertiliser, and the most expensive to obtain. 



It is, then, by more thorough methods of cultivation, by effective draining, 

 by liming and green manuring, that the fertility of our Cumberland soils 

 may be increased. 



By fertility is understood not the actual richness in plant-food, but that 

 condition of the soil which enables the plant-food present to be utilised to the 

 best advantage, and in which any manures added may be most effective. 



Of course it may not be necessary to carry out all the operations above 

 mentioned. In some soils nothing may be required to bring them into good 

 condition but deep cultivation, in others a dressing of lime may be sufficient; 

 there are others whose only defect is want of humus; but the principal 

 defects in our Cumberland soils, in addition to their poverty of plant-food, 



