carried out at the Adelaide Botanic Garden) 
but where the plant is horticultural ly beauti- 
ful all lovers of our native vegetation should 
take active steps to insure that such plants 
are grown. 
Many hold blocks of land and after estab- 
lishing a holiday home proceed to plant 
representatives of our native plants. In doing 
so, care must be taken to make certain that 
representatives of the existing vegetation are 
preserved otherwise they in turn may become 
amongst our rarities. 
Of the cultivation of native plants, the 
only sound instruction given has been that 
which states, “they are not to be dug around 
or interfered with." Such a statement, of 
course, is applicable to all woody subjects 
and to enforce it, mulches of compost, saw- 
dust and other organic material including 
strawy stable manure should be used. I do 
not subscribe to the much voiced theory that 
Australian plants should not be manured. 
Some time ago, when reviewing a publication 
dealing with American shrubs, one came 
across a statement which rang familiar, “on 
no account should manure in any form be 
given to our ‘American trees and shrubs, 
but merely mulch with leaf mould, compost 
and other materials.” This practice of not 
manuring Australian plants no doubt has 
arisen from happenings occurring in England 
where, possibly, some potent mixture meant 
for green house plants was inadvertantly 
given to Australian plants under cultivation. 
Naturally these plants succumbed and thus, T 
suspect, from such an action the myth arose. 
Perhaps Loudon, that all embracing and most 
careful horticultural writer of the early 19th 
century, may have unwittingly originated 
this story. 
Experiments which have been carried out 
by the Adelaide Botanic Garden and in con- 
junction with Mr. J. G. Kelly and Son at 
Giles Corner, indicate the help in establish- 
ing Australian plants when one handful of 
superphosphate has been applied to the 
ground either immediately before or after 
planting. With legumes the establishment 
rate has been almost 100 per cent, and the 
subsequent growth excellent. In addition, 
these plants have received dressings of old 
stack bottom and sawdust and yet it is doubt- 
ful if this influence has caused one death 
amongst the Australian material planted in 
this experimental block. I would suggest to 
each who is interested in the cultivation of 
our plants to manure them in the same way 
as we manure our other garden plants, 
namely, in moderation or little and often. 
In some experiments carried out privately, 1 
have found neither blood and bone nor sul- 
phate of ammonia is in any way harmful, in 
fact, sulphate of ammonia and sulphate of 
iron (3:1) at 1 ounce per square yard in 
monthly dressings has improved the vigour 
and appearance of Australian plants culti- 
vated on the Adelaide plains. 
The question of mulching with materials 
other than organic matter should not be over- 
looked, and in Melbourne, Mr. Ivor Hammet, 
some years ago, applied a deep mulch (2 in. 
to 3 in.) of small path gravel to all his beds. 
The results were astonishing; not only did 
the plants respond, and of course there was 
no consolidating of the soil, but the seeds 
produced fell, were washed down amongst 
the gravel and germinated in profusion; rare 
and common plants were reared in the same 
way. In South Australia, and in Adelaide 
especially, protection to the soil from the 
intense summer sun is a first requirement in 
the cultivation of any plant. Mulching with 
sawdust or organic matter, decomposed 
manure capped with gravel will conserve 
moisture it is true, but I feel what is more 
important it will reduce the soil temperature 
and add essential plant foods to the soil. 
That the roots of native plants penetrate 
sawdust after it has become decomposed can 
be seen by anyone who has ever visited a 
saw mill dump heap. 
1 have endeavoured to draw' attention to 
the various ways in which plants can be 
protected. We must, however, reserve much 
needed tracts of land so that the plant asso- 
ciations remain intact or, failing that, reserve 
sufficient to insure the protection of rare or 
locally distributed plants. If these two 
measures fail, or to supplement these mea- 
sures. we should actively cultivate the indi- 
vidual plants themselves for in these ways 
only will it be possible for us to perpetuate 
the existing species. To do otherwise will 
surely reap the condemnation of all in a few' 
generations. 
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