83 



a similar quantity in July ; and, best, just before a shower of rain, 

 & Ib. of nitrate of soda would be useful. 



I have repeatedly recommended the growing of prunes. Cali- 

 fornia lately had a good crop of 114,227,000 Ib., and there is un 

 doubtedly a good sale for them. Here prunes frequently bear too 

 large a crop, and drop most of the fruit on account of drought or 

 want of plant-food. A dry position is, however, fairly safe if they 

 -are budded on the peach, and fertilisers, together with the thinning 

 of the fruit, may give you a good-sized French prune. When Coe's 

 Golden Drop or the Silver Prune are grown where there is a good 

 rainfall, Myrobalan stocks may be preferable. 



That South Australia can produce fine trees and fine apples is 

 undoubted. So Mr. Wescombe, of Upper Sturt, had 70 bushels of 

 .apples in 1892 from a tree planted forty years go, and at Watervale 

 I saw an apple- tree twenty years old, which was 5 ft. in circum- 

 ference at the base, and was 44 ft. across the branches. The finest 

 Calville Blanc and Gravenstein have been grown in Bugle Ranges 

 and Norton Summit, and London knows by this time some of our 

 good keeping varieties. 



We have, however, to use great care in grading and packing. 

 Quality is, of course, a feature which cannot be neglected. With- 

 out using fertilisers for stable manure may produce mainly leaves 

 and wood you may obtain small fruit; perhaps prematurely 

 matured, woody, a mass of skin and core. But if you have your 

 fruit not of one size it should not be forgotten that some of the 

 dealers at home have customers that demand only the best and 

 largest fruit, for which they are prepared to pay high prices ; while 

 other dealers can do best with medium fruit, and grading thus 

 suits both, and helps the trade. Of course, only the best varie- 

 ties fit for export should be planted, and the public taste must be 

 studied, but also the eye pleased by color and equal size when the 

 case is opened. 



Finally, it is a mistake to believe that because a tree ha* 

 foorne well one year it cannot give any fruit next year. If mois- 

 ture and plant food is not present the tree is unable to mature 

 fruit, but with these in sufficient quantities it should bear every 

 year, except when blossoming in unfavorable weather. The answer 

 I received from the Angaston Bureau, a district where apricot? 

 are grown in large quantities was that the trees had not yet received 

 any manure. But is the crop always as good as it might be ? In supply- 

 ing chiefly potash and Thomas phosphate I have myself never been 

 without a full crop of apricots, peaches, plums, loquats, and figs. 

 Other fruits I do not cultivate in Adelaide plains. Shelter towards 

 the south-west and north is not only desirable, in many localities 

 imperatively demanded for a profitable orchard. 



Since the above was written I have been favored by His Grace 

 the Duke of Bedford with his first and second report on the 

 Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm. The ground was trenched in 

 1894, and in the absence of leading data a normal mixture was given 

 of fertilisers to replace the food constituents which, according to 



