21 



Many swamps occur through these sandy patches where rushes, 

 the " Paper bark " (Melaleuca leucadendron, Linne), and ti- trees 

 abound. These swamps can be easily drained, and when thus 

 reclaimed can be turned into market gardens of marvellous fertility. 

 In many instances, especially along the coast, the soil is made of an 

 accumulation of silt, mud, and vegetable detritus, which settling in 

 the water collected in basins bottomed by calcareous hardpans, form 

 a rich black mould. 



These hardpans consist of a conglomerate of greyish mud in 

 which are thickly embedded fragments of sea shells, and which 

 after being subjected to the process of weathering, crumble down 

 readily and assume the normal condition of a soil rich in lime, 

 phosphates, potash, and organic matter. These hardpans prevent 

 the penetration into the deeper soil of roots as well as of water, and 

 their breaking up previous to the cultivation of those marshes is of 

 primary necessity. Whenever they are met with at a small depth 

 the pick or the crowbar readily breaks them up into cakes or slabs, 

 but should they be found at a greater depth, one of the readiest 

 and at the same time cheapest ways of breaking them up is by means 

 of small charges of dynamite, which so shatter and crack the 

 hardpan that not only can roots penetrate through the clefts, but 

 the stagnant water also sinks by gravitation, and the land is 

 generally drained to such an extent that it gradually softens and 

 crumbles down until ultimately the hardpan completely disappears. 

 Should fruit trees have already been anywhere planted without the 

 precaution of breaking up this hardpan having already been taken, 

 the trees are sure sooner or later, whenever their roots reach the 

 retentive hardpan, to languish and flag; in such cases small 

 dynamite cartridges exploded on each side of the tree in the winter 

 time when it is dormant will, without injuring the tree, remove the 

 obstruction and bring relief. 



As can reasonably be expected, the frequent application of 

 fertilisers will be necessary for the production of heavy crops in 

 sandy soils. Generally speaking, the lack of potash is the weakest 

 point of such soil, and wherever the reefs of coral limestone met with 

 in the neighbourhood of the coast are not present, phosphates will be 

 required, while nitrogenous fertilisers, and preferably those of a 

 less readily soluble kind, will likewise be necessary. On such soil 

 the process of adding to its fertility by means of green manuring 

 the ploughing in of some quick-growing green crops is much to be 

 recommended. 



By their intermixing in variable proportions, these several typical 

 soils of the South -West division of Western Australia give rise to 

 a greater variety of soils, some of which, like those of a sedimentary 

 nature, occur along the course of existing or old river beds, and are 

 usually deep, well drained, very productive, and by reason of their 

 generally well sheltered situations, eminently well adapted for the 

 purpose of fruit growing. 



