12 AUSTRALIAN AORICULTUKE. 



air, &c. The very excellent geological works published by 

 Mr. Wilkinson (geological surveyor), Professor Liversidge, 

 and Messrs. Cox and Ratte, afford much and very 

 interesting information on that subject. The soils referred 

 to have been analysed mechanically, in the farming sense, 

 and chemically, in order to get at the proportions of plant 

 food available and stored up, awaiting the skill and 

 labour of the agriculturist. 



Then, Vegetation Speaks of the Soil. The native 

 grasses, herbs, shrubs, and trees offer a capital index to the 

 quality of the soils in which they grow. It is simply 

 impossible to find a heavy growth of rich herbs and grass 

 upon poor land. The timbers also form a guide. As a 

 rule, the softer woods are on richer soil, the harder on 

 poorer soil. Taking, then, the land in its native state, 

 there is less difference in the best soils suited for the 

 purposes of the grazier, the farmer, or the gardener, 

 than might at first appear. They all require land rich 

 in the elements that produce rich grass, and with the 

 exception of the scrub, brush, and other lands, so heavily 

 timbered that there is no grass whatever, the best 

 naturally-grassed lands are the best, as a rule. In taking 

 up land that has been in use, the plants or crops growing 

 upon it aid very much in coming to a decision regarding 

 its present state, and the kind of treatment it has received. 

 When the country is open, and used for grazing only, the 

 grass and herbs offer as good an indication of its capa- 

 bilities as the animals feeding upon the land. The dense 

 thick growth of annual grasses, or herbage, closely matted 

 together and fresh looking, tells an unmistakable tale of 

 the natural wealth of the soil. The symptoms of decay are 

 undue preponderance of long, coarse grasses, which during 

 the winter months become dry, brittle, and of a dark 

 brown colour. There is but little nourishment in them. 

 Weeds, coarse thistles of various kinds, sorrel, shrubby 

 and weedy plants generally, tell their own tale of poor 

 cultivation, overstocking, and of poverty that nothing 

 short of skill in treatment, heavy manuring, or long and 

 absolute rest can bring back into fertility. In the sections 

 of country longest settled, but too much land in this state 



