1 Noy., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 519 
keeping down the weeds which always come on in this time of rapid growth, 
We shall let the palms, &c., alone. By the way, this dry weather is just the 
time to fight weeds. ‘The great thing is to give them no chance to reproduce 
their kind. They must go down before your cultivator before they have any 
time to leave behind them others to carry on the vendetta against you. Unless 
you are just cultivating a few square yards, you have no time to waste with the 
ordinary hoe. Geta Planet Cultivator or an Avery Garden Plough, and learn 
how to use it. There is more in this learning than is generally thought. 
Nearly anyone will tell you, for instance, that he can use a spade. Now, men 
who can use a spade are rare. In rural England, a good many years ago, men 
prided themselves on their ability to use certain tools, but it is the rarest thing 
to hear a man now boast of his ability with agricultural tools. This is due to a 
sort of belief that in elementary matters like this there is nothing to learn. I 
have met with many men who had been through colleges and all the rest, and 
who could not rake a garden walk in a proper way, or handle a spade 
as it should be handled, to save’ their lives. If you want good lawns, 
topdress them before the rains and warm weather. A little sulphate 
of iron is a capital thing to mix with topdressing for lawns. It has 
the property of destroying moss and other rank-growing vegetation. Such 
plants take up a much greater proportion of water than grasses, especially of 
the finer kinds, and when too large a percentage of the sulphate is taken up 
the plant is destroyed, but in the proportion in which the finer grasses absorb 
it it acts as a valuable manure. It should be used in the proportion of 4-cwt. 
to the acre. It is good also in solution for watering lawns infested with moss 
or other rank growths when applied in the above proportion. In your garden, 
insects will feel the influence of the warm weather, and will increase rapidly in 
number, and as the succulent young leaves afford them congenial pasturage 
they will make themselves more and more at home. As you do not wish to 
emulate the example of that man who cut off his nose to spite his face, you 
will be a little chary about injuring the young growth of your plants for the 
sake of killing a few insects, but the moment you can do so with safety they 
must be tackled. It is even better to run some risk of damaging a few shoots 
than to let them forge ahead to any extent. No matter how carefully you have 
sprayed and washed your trees during the winter, insects are sure to come. 
With the dry wind comes the aphis, and after him, especially in dry warm 
weather, the red spider puts in an appearance. With cold damp weather you 
are sure to find mildew on your roses—this latter a fungus. Just as the warm 
weather is coming on, if you take a needle and raise one of the dead dry 
shields of the scale insect upon one of the leaves of a tree, you will find a 
perfect nest of very lively little insects—the young scale insects ready to emerge 
and make war on the tender foliage. They begin to stir just before the young 
foliage begins to come, and that is the time to make things lively for them. 
When they settle down, and, like the Spartan soldiers, erect their hard shields 
weainst the enemy, it is a much more difficult matter. The way we start a 
campaign against the foe here, is to take each plot by its consecutive number. 
(All the plots are numbered and laid down with respective areas, &c., upon a 
map.) We carefully examine all the plants, plot by plot, and decide what can 
best be cut away, what strength to use for different plants, &c. ‘Vhis is jotted 
down, and then each plot is dealt with consecutively, so that no plant which can 
be reached is missed. ‘This will soon be done, and again after the lapse of about 
a week, so as to reach such of the enemy as have only been staggered by the 
first application. 
The methods of preparation of Bordeaux mixture, ammoniacal solution of 
copper carbonate,‘kerosene emulsion, Law celeste, London purple, Paris green, &e., 
are, I fancy, well known to everyone into whose hands the Jowrnal is likely to 
come. They have been published often enough. I like the plan of pasting these 
offen-wanted recipes on a card, and hanging them up for reference, for they 
are just the sort of thing you cannot carry in your head; besides, you want your 
head for more important work. 
