m 
Supplmint to the "Trtjtkal AgrkuUwiiV^ [JUNB 1, i9ll. 
the water ? It runs off over the hard soil into 
some creek or gully or low place ou the land, and 
very little goes into the soil. That little is quite 
sufficient for the grass whose roots are near the 
Surface, but would not be of much use to plants 
virhose roots go deeper into the soil. So you see 
that ploughing is necessary to enable the rain 
water to reach the lowest roots. Now I must 
tell you something else about the rain water. 
After a heavy shower of rain you will notice that 
often a strong westerly wind sets in. Now, a 
strong wind will dry up the ground more rapidly 
than a hot sun; and if Nature had not- done 
something to help the poor plants to get the 
moisture they want, they would all die. 
]Sow I will show you how they get this mois- 
ture. Here is a bit of lump sugar. It is quite 
dry, you see- I dip one end of it into this saucer of 
water. Now examine the sugar. You see that it is 
quite wet. Even the dry part I held in my hand 
is wet. How does this happen The sugar is 
full of little passages through which the water 
creeps up until these passages are all full, and the 
whole lump is full of water. Just in the same 
way the soil, after it has been ploughed and 
harrowed, is full of little passages through which 
the rain water which lies below the soft soil 
creeps up and supplies the roots with all they 
require until another shower falls. When dry 
weather lasts for a long time the supply of water 
below the surface becomes exhausted at last, and 
the poor plants, which cannot live without water, 
become sickly, and at last die off. But a good 
farmer is always stirring up the soil between the 
crops, and by doing this he provides more plant 
food for them, and" the moisture does not pass 
away so quickly as if he left the soil to itself- 
Then there is another reason for knocking the 
loil about, and for digging and raking and 
hoeing it. You know whal weeds are. Weeds 
are plants, and some of them are very useful ; 
but when they grow amongst garden field crops 
these plants are in their wrong place. Now look 
&t a paddock full of Sida retusa, which the 
youngest of you can tell from any other weed. 
This Sida retusa is a very valuable plant. Its 
bark is full of fine, strong, silky threads like flax, 
and these threads are very useful for making 
ropes. But you know that no flowers or vege- 
tables will grow properly if they are smothered 
by Sida retusa, so however useful a plant it may 
be, it becomes a weed because it is in ■ the wrong 
place, and therefore the farmer and gardener take 
care to keep it out of their crops. 
There are other weeds, such as thistles, which 
grow in great quantities in the winter, and these 
must be carefully kept down or they would 
smother the plants we want to grow. There is 
another reason why weeds should be kept out of 
a crop. The wheat and oats and barley and 
potatoes want a great deal of plant food ; but 
the weeds want just as much, and they thus 
take away the plant food which would feed the 
crops, and these are consequently not so good as 
they would be if there were no weeds. 
Now let us see what you have learnt in this 
lesson. You learned first why the soil in the 
£arin had to be ploughed up, and why it has to be 
harrowed. Then you discovered what becomes 
of the rain water which falls on hard ground 
and on ploughed ground. Furthermore, yoa 
learned that the hot sun and the strong wind 
dry up the land by sucking up the moisture in 
the same manner as the wind dries a wet pocket 
handkerchief exposed to it on a clothes line. 
Then there was something else I showed you. 
You remember the experiment with the lump of 
sugar. That showed you that the water deep 
below the surface is enabled to reach the plants 
by means of all the little passages through the 
soft soil. And, lastly, you learned that one reason 
for constantly stirring the soil is to bring more 
plant food to the roots of the crop, and the 
other for the purpose of destroying the weeds, 
which would, if allowed to grow, either smother 
the plants you have grown or else use up so 
much of their food as to prevent them from 
coming to perfection. One other lesson you must 
not forget. That is, that even useful plants may 
become weeds if they interfere with any crops 
the farmer may be growing. 
Many of you have seen fields of wheat, and in 
some fields you may have noticed quantities of 
oats mixed with the wheat. Now, oats are very 
valuable crop when grown by themselves, but 
when they get into a wheat field they become 
weeds, which cause great loss to the farmer, 
because, instead of his crop being all wheat, it is 
half oats and half wheat, and is of no use to a 
miller until the oats are taken out of it. 
I will now give you a few questions to answer, 
and remember this, if you carefully attend to 
these short lessons, you will have no difficulty in 
answering the questions without looking at a 
book, and as you advance further into the subject 
of Agriculture you will be able to answer far 
more difficult questions as easily as you can 
answer these eight first ones. 
Questions on Lesson I. 
1. — What does the word "Agriculture" mean.? 
2. — Why must the soil be ploughed and har- 
rowed ? 
.'5. — What becomes of the rain water which falle 
on hard ground. 
4. — What becomes of it when it falls on 
ploughed land ? 
5. — Hosv do the plants obtain moisture from 
the soil in dry weather ? Can you des- 
cribe an expirement to prove what 
you say ? 
6. — What is plant food.*" 
7. — What do you understand by weeds f 
8. — Do useful plants ever become weeds 
OCCASIONAL NOTES. 
AVe have to acknowledge with thanks the receipt 
of a packet of the lalihara Melon, a plant found in 
the arid regions of South Africa known as the Kali- 
hara desert. The Hon. F. R. Moor of the Natal 
House of Assembly, and a Member of the Natal 
Government, states that this melon is the greatest 
boon which can be bestowed on an arid region. 
The value of -this melon is as a staadby for stock 
