November 1, 1907 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
15 
velop fruit and seeds, a demand is made 
upon its reserve materials. If these are 
not quite sufficient to meet the demand. 
it is easy to conceive that the extra food 
supplied by means of a good mulching 
will supply the deficiency. 
On the subject of winter mulching the 
“ Fruitgrower ” remarks :—Do winter 
mulches do harm or good? This may 
seem a curious questimn to many readers, 
but there is so much difference as to what 
constitutes a mulch that we are not sur- 
prised such a question should be put. 
Some say winter mulches do harm, that 
they are cold, or keep the soil cold, and 
consequently retard growth. Well, that 
again depends not only upon the nature 
of the mulch, but the season, What is a 
mulch? Well,a mulch. broadly speaking, 
may be made of a ything almost, used as 
a coyerivg around the roots of a tree or 
bush or on the top of a bed. In summer 
we put on a mulch to certain crops to 
keep the roots cool, and that coolness 
comes from preventing the heat of the 
sun striking into the soil covered. It 
retards maturity, and is useful to that 
end, always provided that mulch is damp 
and of a low,er temperature than the soil 
itself, Now with regard to the winter 
mulch: Does it retard growth and do 
harm to crops? That, to a great extent 
depends upon the nature of the mulch 
and the conditions. For instance, a man 
claims that a winter mulching of stable 
manure acts as a cold sheet and retards 
growth, but, at the same time, he fails to 
see that a mulch of stable manure may 
not, properly treated, be itself of a lower 
temperature than the soil, If not, how 
can it retard growth? Take our mulch - 
it is composed of stable manure and loam, 
well mixed. It woald never do to say 
that the application of such a blanket in 
winter to the strawberr) bed and plant 
could keep them cold, and thus retard . 
growth. On the contrary, it would pro- 
tect the rootlets from a very severe and 
destructive frost, and furnish them with 
a good supply of plant food at the sune 
time. We claim that the free use of this 
mulch, made up as it is of short stable | 
manure only and loam, is productive of 
wonderful results, and especially when. 
put on strawberry beds which are two 
years old or more. No grower can test 
this method without seeing that the 
improvement in the health of the plants 
and the size and quantity of the fruits 
are most marked, and when once used it 
will never be discarded. We quite agree 
that to throw on a lot of hard cakes of 
coarse manure, loaded with straw and 
general refuse, may retard the growth of 
an asparagus bed if it is done under 
certain conditions, but even only then. 
In winter—that is, when wintry weather 
prevails—the soil is as cold as it can well 
be, and whether wet mulch is put on or 
not will not make any difference. In 
open weather it is well, naturally, for the 
air and light to act on the soil; that is 
why such a mulch, if used, should be 
removed when the weather is open, to 
induce early growth. 
aa 
The Poultry Yard. 
For explanation of points see previous issues. 
Egg Culture. 
Why does England import 700,090,900 
to 800,000,090 of ‘ezgs every year, and 
pay over £2,500,000 for them 1 The 
auswer is: That the demand for egzs 1s 
steadily increasing, while the home pro- 
duc9 is either lessening or stvtionary in 
amount. : 
The importation of Freach e393 into 
England his increase | to a 930 incredible 
degres. {t has risen from about L5),0 )9,090 
to 709,000,000 annually since 1850, while 
the yalue per 1,000 has also increasod, 
until at length British importations cost 
the natioa nearly £3,090,000 sterling por 
annum. 
Eigg-culture in Franco is almost exclu- 
sively confined to small farmers, who 
carry it on in a vigorous and commercial 
spirit, and chiefly in Burgundy Nor- 
mandy, and Picordy. Every village has 
its weakiy market, to which farmars and 
their wives bring their produce In prefer 
ene to selling it at the farm to itinerant 
dealers. 
A merchant will sometimes buy 20,000 
eggs at one market; he takes them to his 
warehouse, where thoy are sorted and 
packed, and possibly sent off the same 
day to Paris or London. 
According to the conditions required 
by the buyers, the eggs are sometimes 
counted, sometimes “sized” by passing 
Ne ES 
them through a ring, and sometimes they 
are bought in bulk. They are sent to 
England in cases containing from 6 0 to 
1,200 each. It is found that the buck- 
wheat districts are those on which most 
eggs aro pzolucsl. This is worthy of 
note by bree lers. The production of eggs 
for market is one thing, and tbe hatching 
of than another. Thosa who have tried 
artificial hatching and rearing of poultry 
hive arrive] at tha conclusion that both 
egzs anl poaltry cin only be produced 
ona prying sevle by the firmars and by 
paople living -on s nall holdings, and this 
opinion stands to reason. About farm- 
yards and cottazes in rural districts hans 
» cin pick up fool thit would otherwise ba 
wasted, Bosides, let it be kept in mind 
that hans like to roam about, seurching 
for seeds. worms, ani particles of lime to 
furnish material out of which the shells 
of their exz3 are formod. If kept in con- 
firemans, excealing cire is requirel to 
supply the crevtura with such requisitas 
a3 their m vteraal instincts sven to require. 
What wo suzzest is that farmers and thosa 
possessing suffisient scrpe for keeping 
poultey should go fur more lirgely into 
the business of egz-culture than thay do 
at present. Why should they allow the 
great egs supply for Hagland to bain the 
hands of othars? Tha answer, we think, 
is: Tuat our farming classes generally 
look dowa contemptuously on the supoply- 
ing of egzs for market. It is thay think, 
