Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/215

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190
ON THE CULTIVATION

districts, but even adjacent villages, differ essentially in their mode of planting. In some parts of that kingdom, the cuttings are placed in the ground scarcely a yard asunder, and in others immense intervals are left between them, which are made use of for the ordinary objects of culture. In those villages to the south of the Loire, where I have occasionally examined the vineyards, the vines were very generally growing from three to four feet from each other, in rows, about six feet apart. At Xeres, in Spain, the vine cuttings are generally planted five feet every way.[1]

The best mode of training the vines in New South Wales would be on trellisses, which are preferable to the low props used in some parts of France; for if the vines were kept as low to the ground in the colony, as they are in the northern parts of France, and on the Rhine, the reflected heat of the sun, would perhaps be detrimental to them. Not having interested myself much in vineyards, during my residence in New South Wales, from being constantly engaged in other avocations, I regret that I am unable to furnish any account of the mode of planting, and system of cultivation, adopted in the extensive vineyards of the Messrs. Macarthur, at

  1. Mr. Busby recommends that on a poor sandy or stoney soil the rows should be four feet from each other, and the plants three feet apart in the rows. But on a good strong loam or alluvial soil, the distance of the rows from each other must be six feet and the plants four feet apart.