at 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
December 1, 190% 
the use of purgatives, followed by doses 
and 
copaiaba ; food should for a time consist 
of bread soaked in brandy and milk, 
given frequently in small quantities. But 
it is not worth while going to all this 
of iodide of potassium or iron 
trouble for an ordinary fowl, and your 
friends who say there is no remedy are 
practically right. 
good if applied to most ailing fowls. 
Indeed, the advice is 
EDITORIAL. 
Rae extraordinary weather that pre- 
vailed during the month seems to 
have upset the calculations of most 
producers. 
as the weather, because everybody is 
more or less affected by it. Producers 
particularly have to take it as it comes, 
Nothing is so commonplace 
and plan out their work accordingly from 
day to day. Farmers are praying for the 
sunshine to ripen their crops quickly. 
The cold weather is a good condition to 
develop the grain, and therein they find 
satisfaction, provided the later conditions 
will enable them to reap it. If the grain 
develops freely and large, and a sudden 
burst of heat follows, there is the risk of 
the sudden ripening shaking the grain 
out during the process of ripening, But 
there is always something to combat the 
producer in his efforts to win treasure 
from thz soil, and no doubt the grain 
producer will work the business through. 
Likewise with the market-gardener 
and the orchardist. The latter is rubbing 
his hands gleefully at the present moment 
as he walk around his trees and sees the 
fruit setting and developing well into a 
prolific harvest of apples for export. But 
he has not got his fruit into the cases 
yot. and while he may smile at the 
prospect, there is a long and treacherous 
road to travel with the weather and a 
thousand and one other conditions that 
may mean loss at every turn, It is, how- 
ever, no use being pessimistic, and up to 
the present things are looking well for 
the orchardist. His fruit is doing well, 
and if he has been careful regarding the 
final developments of his crop the risks 
are worth taking that he will do well out 
of it. * 
A very striking feature of the coming 
harvest will be the returns from compara- 
tively new country. Tt would be 
interesting to keep a separate record of 
the returns from the country that has 
been opened during, say, the last two 
years, particularly in regard to the land 
on the River Murray, and in what has 
been so long and stupidly known as the 
Ninety Mile Desert. Land on the 
Murray has reached a comparatively 
phenomenal figure in the purchase price, 
Not that there should really be anything 
peculiar in that, because it has been 
prophesied years and ;ears ago that 
some day the Murray lands would be 
developed, and the price consequently 
reach a high figure in market value. 
However, prophecies have been neglected 
for years, and only just recently have the 
people with surplus cash and an interest 
in agricultural pursuits turned their 
attention to the Murray Jands with an 
idea of developing them. Now it is 
reported that river frontages are held at 
a very high figure. But the figure is 
only high in a comparative sense, because 
of the cheapness of the original price, 
which was next to nothing at a rental 
value to the Crown. 
knowledge that around the Loxton 
country the new farmers there are 
reaping 15 bushels of wheat to the acre 
on virgin soil that has really only just 
been burnt and scarified over. Such a 
process of farming is ridiculous, but it 
brings in the money, and those who get 
it can afford to smile at the old fashioned 
ideas of farming such as we see in the 
Lower North. The best test of a farm is 
the actual cash produced, and if a farmer 
or a Murray scrubber can tear down 500 
acres of scrub, run a fire through it, rake 
it over with a scarifier or a disc cultivator, 
sow the seed in a drill, and reap a crop 
of 15 bushels to the acre he can easily 
afford to smile at the critic who calls him 
a Murray scrubber. So it is that 
hundreds and perhaps thousands of acres 
have during the year been put into crop 
all across the Murray Flats, known as the 
Ninety Mile desert. It would be 
extremely interesting to watch the record 
as a new development in agriculture. © 
It is common 
We hive no doubt that the results will 
show that the game of speculative farm- 
ing in the first stages of working the land 
will pay handsomely. What matter if 
the business is a little rough and ready,. 
money has to be made at the beginning 
of the business and the finer arrange- 
ments of old school fallowing and so on 
will work in later, 
We wish the producers all success, and 
now take the opportunity, as it will not. 
occur before the next publication, of 
wishing the producers of wealth from the 
land a very 
Happy Christmas, 
which they so richly deserve. 
Gladiolus with Curved Stems. 
This interesting and useful novelty 
was originated by Gebrueder Neubronner 
& Co., Neu Ulm, Germany. Gladioli 
with irregular stems having been found 
among the giant Gladioli some years ago 
these plants were set apart and used for 
wholo- 
assortment of colored Gladioli with curved 
stems. As every florist making up floral 
pieces knows how difficult it is to arrange 
the Gladioli, with their stiff stems, grace- 
fully ina vase, these novelties will be 
welcomed as furnishing the desired grace 
of outline and grouping, for the stems 
will droop naturally over the rims of 
vases. 
cross fertilization, producing a 
PRINTING 
‘EVERY DESCRIPTION 
Neatly, Cheaply, and Promptly 
Executed. 
ere ee 
AUSTRALIAN GARDENER 
OFFICE, 
Corner Pirie & Wyatt Sts- 
Adelaide. 
