Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/217

 it might be a good plan to draw the earth in the form of a dos d'ane between the rows of vines. After the first pruning in the beginning of summer, the ground is again lightly worked, and the weeds cleared away from the roots of the vines. The best way of doing this, is to skim the ground between the rows, lightly over with the plough, and afterwards hoe the ground round the roots of the vines, where the plough had not reached. When the bunches begin to form, the weeds are again lightly skimmed off the surface, the common scarifier would, in some cases, be very serviceable for this work.

Manure is occasionally used in France for vineyards, as the quantity of wine is invariably increased thereby, but at the same time its quality is much deteriorated. In the more sandy soils of New South Wales, a dressing of stable manure and wood-ashes, applied at the time that the ground is trenched, would materially assist the growth of the cuttings, without being in any way injurious to them; but on the richer soils on the lower slopes of ranges, composed of mountain limestone, clay-slate, or whinstone, no such application would be necessary.

In a country like New South Wales, where wood is so abundant that every tree felled helps to increase the value of the land, wood -ashes would form a cheap and excellent application to vines, which would increase the quantity of the wine without