254: QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 ApRIt, 1900 
In the meantime we should not be idle. Let us take the best steps we 
to attenuate as muchas possible the effects of the so-far inevitable hailstot rf 
One of the simplest and one well worth discussion in our Farmers’ Assocl# age 
would be the establishment of some sort of Aéutual Insurance against cont 
from hailstorms. In some countries such insurances are undertaken Dy. ee by 
companies. In some cantons of Switzerland they have been taken 1D aaa ‘ik 
the State itself, and are made compulsory. Every farmer contributes a 2 ‘i 
his acreage under crop, and the proceeds are sufficient to indemnify the VW 
of the terrible calamity, and to pay for the very small working expenses, mst 
As preliminary steps to the establishment of such desirable institutom™ 
would be advisable— ; of 
1. To request the Chief Weather Office to publish annually a ™P 
hailstorms with all possible details. A sail al 
e 
2. To request the Registrar-General to publish annually 
statistic of all damages done by hailstorms. 
3. To collect all possible information on the establishment 
of hail insurance in other countries. 
Such steps would no doubt furnish ere long both the financier and the sae 
man with sound and reliable data upon which to base the establishment ould 
workable system of insurance against damage from hailstorms, and thus W 
be in some measure attenuated one of the most dreadful and undeserve 
backs of our agriculture. 
and workité 
SALTBUSH. 
For the past eighteen years exhaustive experiments have been made a ‘ 
Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of California, 1? on 
cultivation of various varieties of saltbush. The results of these exper ( 
have just been published in a bulletin (No. 125) of the Unie i 
Summarising the results, the director, Professor Charles H. Shinn, says t + tbat 
tests of some species have extended over the greater part of the State, 2 
Atriplex semibaccata appeared to be the most useful of all the species. 
et 
Mr. J. H. Maiden, Government Botanist, New South Wales, on the att 
hand, mentions an “ Old Man Saltbush” (Atriplee nummularia) as one © 
plants whose value as a fodder plant it would not be easy to exaggeray®, «| 4 
advantages are that it is nutritious, it yields an enormous quantity of fee ting 
short time, it seeds enormously, and it may readily be propagated by CU”? 
It has been so much appreciated that it is getting scarce. eel 
Much attention is paid to this plant at the Cape, where cattle, ii wit 
horses, donkeys, &c., feed on it in preference to the native saltbush, 4- ho tbe 
The A. nummularia grows toa height of 10 feet and even more betW sth 
Narran and the Warrego, and in the arid districts of Queensland," 
Australia, and Victoria. New 
Mr. G. Valder, Principal of the Hawkesbury Agricultural College was 
South Wales, made a long series of experiments with saltbush whet 
manager of the Wagga Wagga Experiment Farm. ; viet 
e@ 
The seeds were sown in beds, and the young plants transplanted 0U 
ne 
the 
about 5 inches high into a large plot of well-worked, sandy soil. They x 
put in drills 4 feet apart, the plants being 2 feet apart in the drills. BY? 
by every other plant was taken out, and in ten months the plants wel? —j00 
6 to 7 feet high and touching each other. Propagation by cuttings was ill 
very successful, Experiments were made with A. nummularia; A. pale 
a species of a dwarf-growing habit; .A. leptocarpa, which is of a creeping ‘i pe 
and does not grow so strongly as the former, although it thrives We’ 7 jis 
semibaccata, one of the best of. the dwarf-growing salt-bushes; 24% 
