Page:Australian enquiry book of household and general information.djvu/193

 about, liable to the weather or thieves. A room twelve by twelve (12 x 12), will be large enough for this purpose, built with slabs and roofed with bark, he need not floor this room, but he can make a kind of loft in the roof by laying slabs across, no matter how roughly, it, will answer for storing his pumpkins if there is no room below and he wants to keep them. While this work is progressing the burning of refuse timber should also be going on and the fires kept alight, fresh ones lighted and the wood heaped together, this he can do every night before turning in, it won't take him long to go round to each fire and look to it; and the sooner his land is properly cleared the sooner will he begin to reap some substantial benefit from it.

Directly the corn is from eight inches to a foot high it must all be gone over and "hilled up," that is the earth banked up to the roots, and where there are three or more plants growing together pull out all but one or two, provided they are not quite close together. If he starts his clearing in July or August he can buy some good melon and pumpkin seed and plant them among his corn. He must be careful that he does not put them at all near each other. Pumpkins should be at one side of the paddock or clearing, and melons at the other. If near each other the bees and other insects will fertilize the pumpkins with melon pollen, and vice versa, and the result will be unhappy. If there are bees, and few insects, when the vines flower he must go among them every two or three mornings, before the dew is off them, and fertilize the female flowers with the pollen from the male; if he does this the yield from the vines will be greatly increased, and it will take very little time. All that is needed is to pick a male flower that has plenty of pollen and shake it over the female flowers. He must learn which is which, or he may make the mistake of picking his female flowers instead of the male. The male flower has a single pistil and it is covered with pollen (a yellow dust), the female has a different pistil, very much shorter and without the pollen. Another distinction is that under the female flower is the tiny formation that eventually becomes the pumpkin, if not fertilized it withers and drops off after a few days. Twice or even once a week will suffice to go round the vines if he cannot spare the time oftener. There is always a market for both pumpkins and melons, but if he cannot get a fair price for them it will pay him best to keep them to feed his cows and pigs.

I have not mentioned any particular size for the cultivation paddock, it all depends on his capability for managing. A small patch of ground well kept will return more than a large one ill kept and badley farmed. Unless he employs outside labour now and then, about five acres will be as much as he can manage at