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every one living by the soil to do as is the practice with the onion- 
growers of the Portarlington district, cultivate every available 
inch of the block, and not waste time—“ the warp of life”—in 
holding too much land or becoming in any other way partners in 
that well-known but scarcely successful firm of Messrs. Grasp- 
all and Lose-all. 
Surely 40 acres of good land, in a well-watered position, and 
systematically used, should be a fair thing for a good man to - 
manage, defined by a recent correspondent of one of our Victorian 
newspapers as laid out thus:—l0 acres, homestead, orchard, 
poultry, cow-yard, &c.; 10 acres to grow field peas, potatoes, &c., 
as food for pigs, poultry, cattle, &c.; 20 acres set apart for grazing 
of cows and horses. 
There are of course very many labour-saving tools, which in 
the hands of our “coming men” will help them materially to 
reduce their holdings to a state of tillage. Those in the 
agricultural section are very numerous and mostly valuable, but 
it seems to me for small selections the ‘‘ Planet Junior” hand- 
plough, drill, hoe, rake, and seeding apparatus combined gives a 
hard-working fellow, whose soil is friable, a means of conquering 
his work in very much less time than usual. In the vegetable 
and fruit garden of the Government House the gardener (Mr. 
J. D. Allen) finds it most serviceable. There is another 
instrument of splendid value for a good variety of work in a 
garden, farm, or orchard of the style of a pick (say, 6 lbs. in 
weight), made to order of my late and very much respected father. 
It is shaped thus :— 
Tae Mattock. 
A-B 
15 INCHES 
B-C 
7 INCHES 
I well remember one of his men exclaiming when at work on 
the Barrabool Hills—“ Bedad, here is a clod which has not been 
turned up since Adam was a boy,” but a mattock such as this 
