2 



HOCKINGS' GARDEN MANUAL. 



To work the soil in a manner calculated to 

 produce the best results in all weathers, the first 

 principles of gardening must be understood and con- 

 sistently applied. It is generally known that plants 

 derive the greater part of their nourishment from the 

 soil ; and that, to enable the tender roots to extend 

 in search of food, the earth has to be pulverised. It 

 is known by sad experience that the crops, in flat 

 lands especially, are lost season after season by water 

 in the soil during rainy weather. Crops are fre- 

 quently lost from shallow tillage during drought • and 

 land gets " worked out" from continual cropping 

 without manure. These results are admitted, but we 

 fear the causes are not sufficiently studied, and we are 

 satisfied that due precautions are not adopted to prevent 

 the recurrence of such disasters. 



Nature is very bountiful, but the husbandman 

 will ordinarily only obtain his reward on conforming 

 to certain conditions. To ensure the best prospect 

 of success (pre-supposing the soil to be of average 

 fertility), the grower should drain, subsoil or trench, 

 manure, irrigate, and adopt a rotation of crops. 

 These we have placed consecutively according to 

 their importance ; and, as the space at command is 

 necessarily limited, such short articles will follow on 

 the various subjects as it is hoped will be sufficiently 

 explicit to be intelligible to the novice, while confined 

 within the narrow limits imposed by the moderate pre- 

 tensions of this little hand-book. 



DRAINING AND SUBSOILING. 



Several thousands sterling per annum are lost by 

 the farmers around Brisbane through drought and 

 excessive rain, the greater part of which they might 



