Page:Australian enquiry book of household and general information.djvu/194

 first. A great deal depends on the ground and what it is fit for. If he has a patch of good rich soil fit for lucerne, he cannot do better than sow four or five acres of it, as lucerne is easily kept in order— the first trouble being the last, one may say, till it is ready to mow. But he must be sure his soil is fit for this fodder plant, as it requires very good ground and good depth of soil. As a rule it grows best on the river banks and on land liable to be flooded. Unless lucerne grows well it is no use as a poor crop will not pay, and everything our young farmer plants must be with an eye to a good and a quick return. He cannot afford to experiment at the outset of his undertaking. The reason I give so many injunctions about lucerne is because I have tried it and seen it tried on so many different places without success. On some it grows in patches, on others it becomes woody, and unless you really get a good crop, it pays worse than oats, barley, or almost any crop. On the other hand if it grows well it is a certain income, and being so little trouble is a better crop than any to grow. Five acres well fenced, cleared and under the plough, will give ample room to grow all he will have time to attend to for some time to come.

When his corn has been gathered (he can give the cows the stalks, they will relish them if it has been a poor season) he had better see about ploughing the cleared land, and if he cannot go to the expense of a plough and horses, he should make some arrangement with a neighbour to plough and harrow it for him. If he has his own plough he cannot do better than plough, cross plough, and plough again, the more be stirs up the earth the better return will he get. If he has not had a very good crop of corn he must not grumble or be disheartened. It is not to be expected there would be much of a crop grown in that way on unworked soil; provided he gets enough to feed his poultry, and give a little to the pigs, he may think he has done very well. The corn should be shelled by-and-bye, he will not need to buy a corn sheller for this small quantity, he can most likely do some of it himself during the evenings or he may be able to get some children to shell it for a few pence each. That for the pigs can be left on the cobs, they will prefer to shell it themselves. When shelled it should be spread out on a sheet, a blanket, anything, to dry in the sun before being put into bags. The finest cobs must be saved for seed and hung up in a dry place.

The pumpkins as they ripen must be brought in and stored, and, so long as they are not bruised or broken, they will keep many months, not so the melons which must be sold for what they will fetch, and I would advise that they should be sold on the ground to some fruiterer who will come and take them as he wants