35 
of years, and that future success depends very much on the 
way it is first planted. No return will be expected for the heavy 
outlay it involves for the first two or three seasons, although for 
a long succession of years to come the grower may expect to he 
recouped for the money, thought, and care spent in first 
establishing the plantation. In order to achieve success, the 
work must be carried out thoroughly and intelligently. Be well 
impressed with the fact that a 20-acre vineyard or orchard, well 
planted and carefully tended, will produce a crop nearly as heavy 
as 40 or 50 acres of trees merely stuck in a soil badly drained, 
unaerated, and only partially stirred. The vines and trees, more- 
over, in the properly planted and thoroughly cultivated orchard 
or vineyard will be more luxuriant, longer-lived, the crop more 
healthy, more abundant, the produce will be easier to handle, 
superior in quality, while at the same time the toil, risks, and anxiety 
of the grower, will be considerably lessened. 
The nature of the soil influences appreciably the character of 
the produce, and, to a certain extent, the different classes of trees. 
The grape vine, for instance, although one of the hardiest of the 
cultivated plants, does not yield the same type of produce in all 
kinds of soil. 
A typical and congenial soil for vines and fruit trees is a 
friable, easily worked loam, deep in preference, with a healthy 
subsoil, naturally well drained, to which both air and warmth can 
penetrate from the outside, and which at the same time is 
sufficiently retentive of moisture to invigorate the roots of the 
plant and permit it to resist the severe droughts. Our red gum coun- 
try typifies that class of soil. 
The object the vine-grower has should, to a great degree, in- 
fluence his selection of soil for planting his vineyard. 
For table grapes and raisins it may be stated that the richer 
the soil the finer will the grapes be, and the more handsome the 
well-filled bunches, with well-set ewutlen berries. 
The choicer ‘‘wines’’ on the other hand, are produced in soil 
of a poorer description, especially on light sandy loams and iron- 
stone gravel. In the case of wine, it often happens that quantity 
is adverse to quality: on very rich alluvial flats, for instance, the 
must contains sometimes an excess of albuminous matter, which 
affects the keeping quality of the wines, while bouquet is lessened, 
and a peculiar earthy flavour, disagreeable to the palate and the 
nose, is distinctly perceptible. 
A sandy soil generally gives a dry thin wine, and if the season 
be moist the colour may be poor. The wines, however, produced 
on these soils are generally straight to the taste—that is to say, can 
be blended with most other wines, without changing their respective 
characters. 
