Page:Australian enquiry book of household and general information.djvu/218

 spring. I have heard farmers call this waste and have heard them laugh at others for trying it, but invariably they have had to admit their surprise at the results of the crop after this green-soiling — or green-manuring as it is called. Very often a field will recover its productive powers if left fallow a season or two, even without any manuring, but the ground requires working or ploughing before being left, and it will be all the better for being moved again two or three times, so that the sun and air can get into it and permit the soil to draw in the carbonic acid and nitrogen from the atmosphere for use as plant food hereafter. A field thus left is all the better for any manure that can be put on it. Stable manure is most excellent and very often procurable at very small trouble; fowl house manure is another. A farmer who has only a small portion of agricultural land can often get a better return from it than one who has three times the quantity if he will only bring a little science into his work — a little theory with the practice. Theory is no good without practice, and I doubt if practice is without theory in farming matters.

Every young farmer would do well to subscribe to some magazine or journal and read it regularly, or have it read to him, for there he will find many things, ideas, theories, etc, etc, which he can try himself. There are many very good farmers' journals and papers published now-a-days which would be invaluable to those far out. And, besides, not only does a man gain useful knowledge on many subjects, but he also hears all about what other farmers are doing or trying to do, and it gives him an interest outside himself and his own farm, and in his turn may be able to assist others by corresponding with the journal on some subject he knows thoroughly.

The system of farming in vogue in many parts of Australia is a very bad one. It has, indeed, been well called slip-shod, and the sooner it is remedied the better for all those who live by the soil and what comes from it. A great reason for this loose style of working is doubtless owing to the cheapness of land, when a man has exhausted one piece of land, instead of manuring it and returning to it the salts and sodas he has taken out of it, he lets it lie fallow to recover itself in course of time, and turns his attention to a fresh patch. Our colonial farmers who have had no experience but what they have gained from one another, or picked up by observation, know little and understand less about the rotation of crops, or about green manuring, or if they do know they are too rich in new land to follow it out to any great extent. It is usually the man who possesses a small patch of ground, ten or twelve acres, who not only takes most care of it, but who gets