26 AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURE. 



materials characteristic of even rich grazing and cultiva- 

 tion soils. The ingredients are not numerous, fortunately ; 

 but as the absence of even one is quickly felt, poverty of 

 grass and crops must result, unless the deficiency is made 

 good. The marked deficiencies are in the alkalies, 

 alkaline earths, and nitrates, all of which can be made 

 good in such quantity as warrants their use for profitable 

 agriculture. Their absence, in not a few cases, accounts, in 

 unmistakable manner, for the falling-off in both grass and 

 crops and not them only, but for deterioration of live 

 stock on the land, which suffer very soon from absence of 

 bone-forming material. The dairying districts also suffer 

 from this cause. 



Poverty of Soil v. " Blights." From several of the 

 soils of which analyses were made, heavy crops of corn, 

 wheat, barley, tobacco, roots, &c., were got in years gone 

 by. Thirty to forty bushels of wheat, eight tons potatoes, 

 eighty bushels of corn, and up to 1500 Ibs. tobacco were 

 got per acre while the land was in full vigour. This went 

 on from three to ten years, then the crops began to be 

 lighter and lighter ; and then and this is heard in many 

 of the older settlements " The blight fell upon the land ; 

 and since that happened, it is no use cropping. We may 

 get a bit of corn, and the grass, but nothing else." 

 " Blights " are attributed to numbers of causes to long- 

 continued dry weather ; to grasshoppers and caterpillars ; 

 to insects, westerly winds, and various other causes, all of 

 which are annoyances, and the cause of loss here as 

 they are in all other agricultural countries. But soil 

 impoverishment accounts for no small portion of such 

 pests, and there is ground for confidence that, as more 

 attention i.s given to the state of the soil, and the conditions 

 of fungus and insect life, we will be the better able to 

 ward off the enemies always on the watch to ravage 

 suffering vegetation. 



What Skill Has Done. There are exceptions to the 

 long list of complaints, and men amongst us who have 

 been sufficiently successful all along to give confidence that 

 as the better system becomes more general, agriculture must 

 make the advance so very earnestly desired all over the 



