1 Octr., 1897. ] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 315 
CULTIVATION. 
Thorough cultivation of the soil is a size guanon of successful fruit culture, 
especially in dry districts or in districts where, even though the rainfall is 
large, it is yet precarious, and there are considerable periods in which no rain 
alls. In order to make fruitgrowing pay, you must grow good fruit, as the 
time has now come when inferior fruit is a drag on the market and is unsale- 
able, whereas really good fruit will always find a market; and really good fruit 
can only be produced, with any degree of certainty, when the land is kept in a 
high state of tillage. Therefore, in order to make fruitgrowing pay, you must 
cultivate your orchard thoroughly. 
Keep the orchard clean. No orchardist can afford to grow a crop of 
weeds and a crop of fruit at the same time. If it is too much trouble to keep 
the orchard clean, then the best thing the owner can do is to quit growing 
fruit ; he was not made for an orchardist, and should take up some easier line 
of work. Rest assured that if an orchard planted with the right varieties, in 
a suitable soil and district, can only pay when given thorough care and attention 
and kept in the highest state of cultivation and free from all fungus pests, a 
neglected, ill-pruned, ill-cultivated, and diseased orchard will stand a very poor 
chance, besides being a disgrace to the district and a propagating and dis- 
seminating ground for every kind of disease that fruit is subject to. Thorough 
cultivation is of the greatest importance to the orchard, as, besides keeping the 
land clean and friable, it is the surest way of retaining moisture in the soil 
during a dry time. Where uncultivated land will dry right out and be perfectly 
unworkable, the same ground properly cultivated will retain all the moisture 
necessary for the trees’ growth, and, what is more, should there be a shower at 
any time during the dry spell, the cultivated land will absorb and retain all the 
rain that falls, whereas the uncultivated land will absorb little, if any, the 
greater portion running off the surface and being lost. Every weed growing 
in an orchard in a dry time is robbing the trees of the water required for their 
proper development; so, therefore, if for no other reason, the orchard should 
be kept as clean as possible. Besides this, the growth of weeds and the 
accumulation of rubbish in an orchard form the best of shelters for many 
injurious fruit pests, and render it difficult to deal successfully with them. 
Thorough cultivation is the best remedy against drought, in that by keeping 
the surface of the soil in a fine state, and never allowing it to set, the surface 
acts as a mulch, and prevents the loss of moisture from the soil by surface 
evaporation. By preventing the surface soil from setting, you prevent the 
formation of capillaries right to the surface of the land, and it is through the 
capillaries that surface evaporation takes place. Every orchardist knows how 
moist the soil keeps when covered by a mulch of straw, leaves, or bush-raking, 
and a soil mulch produced by thorough cultivation has the same results, and 
for the same reason—viz., that it prevents surface evaporation. ‘The method 
of cultivation to be adopted is the same in all cases, the implements used 
depending on the nature of the soil and the size of the orchard. 
Plough the orchard during the winter, and cultivate during the summer. 
Ploughing tends to sweeten the soil, and to break up any pan that may be 
formed, as well as to bury any weeds and trash that may have gathered in the 
orchard after the summer cultivation is dispensed with. Plough the orchard 
as soon as it has been pruned, and leave it in the rough, so that any sourness 
in the soil may be sweetened. Plough well, the depth depending on the variety 
of fruit and the nature and depth of the soil. Use implements that turn the 
soil right over, and for this purpose the short-breasted American ploughs, of 
a similar type to the illustration herewith, are the best, being easier to pull, 
better to handle, and doing more work than the ordinary English type of 
plough. In small orchards a single-furrow, one-horse plough (Fig. 5) is all that 
is required, but in large orchards two, three, or four gang ploughs can be used 
if the trees are planted at a proper distance. All the land that can be turned 
over by means of big ploughs should be so treated, and that close to the trees 
