Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/218

 imparting any disagreeable flavour to it. In some of the best continental vineyards, no manure is however used in any form; but when, after a very long course of years, the ground becomes very much exhausted, a dressing of richer mould, (of the same chemical elements as the original soil of the vineyard if it can be procured,) is applied.

I have frequently alluded, in the previous portion of this work, to the soils best adapted for vines in New South Wales. If the land intended for a vineyard in that colony should be of that description, the vine-cuttings may be planted as soon as the land is trenched, but if there should be a predominance of argile in the soil it would be preferable to allow the ground to lie fallow for one year so as to become mellowed by exposure to the sun, and the chemical action of the atmospheric gases.

Vine-cuttings are generally planted with a dibble, but the holes are sometimes made with a spade in very loose ground, and in France in clayey soils a trench is sometimes opened down each row to place the cuttings in, as the compression of the surrounding particles made by & dibble in a tenacious soil, would have an injurious effect on the growth of the cuttings. As each is placed in the ground, a small quantity of light earth moistened with water should be applied around it, and if wood-ashes be mixed with the earth, the