Many well-known breeders carefully mark their best laying hens, and breed from them only, and there is not the slightest doubt that this is well worth the trouble, and in a few years a grand laying strain would be produced. Remember, a great deal depends on how you house and feed your chicks. The best allround food is wheat, and no rubbish-good wheat. Green food of some sort is also indispensable; and bonedust, grit, broken-up oyster-shells, and, better than all, "green bone" help materially to increase the egg yield. Maize should only be given occasionally-being too fattening for the hens you rely on for eggs. Fresh water, kept in a cool place, must be handy, and never put where the sun can warm it.

Fowls also require a dust-bath; they will keep themselves clean if you will help them, but, if they have nothing, insect pests will soon infest them, and gradually your birds will drop away. It is well worth your while occasionally to get a little cotton-waste, soak it well in kerosene, and rub it well in under the feathers, particularly about the neck and back of the head. Do a few at a time, but do them thoroughly. Clean out their houses regularly, and use lime with about a wineglassful of carbolic acid into a bucket of whitewash. Thoroughly wash the interior of the poultry-house with this, and also sprinkle it about the floor. Then cover with dry earth and ashes. You will thus have a poultryhouse that you can enter with pleasure, and that your birds can roost in with comfort. Their perches should not be more than 2 feet from the ground, and should also be kept clean by occasionally washing with kerosene.

This seems a lot of trouble, no doubt, but you will find yourself amply repaid for it by having a healthy stock of poultry, which means profit instead of loss.

In my next article I will deal with show or exhibition birds.

The Orchard.

FRUIT-TREE PRUNING AT WESTBROOK EXPERIMENT FARM.

BY ALBERT H. BENSON.

IN the January number of the Queensland Agricultural Journal for 1898, Part 1, Vol. II., I gave an illustrated description of the principles of fruit-tree pruning, especially as regards the training of the young tree for the first three seasons; and the photographs, which are reproduced herewith, show how this method of pruning has been carried out by me in actual practice at the Westbrook and Hermitage Experiment Orchards, which were planted in 1897. The illustrations on Plate I. are as follow:

1. A Gravenstein" apple-tree planted in 1898. This tree, when set out, consisted of one straight stem, which was cut back to a height of 20 inches, and the four branches shown in the illustration were allowed to develop, all others being removed by summer pruning. It will be noted that each of the four branches has a firm hold of the main stem, and that there is, therefore, no likelihood of splitting.

2. Shows the same tree, pruned.

3. A Monroe's Favourite" apple-tree planted in 1897. This tree was treated in a similar manner to No. 2 last year, the height to which it was cut back being easily seen in the illustration. The tree made a vigorous growth, and was summer-pruned in December last, a small amount of disbudding having taken place previously. The effect of the summer pruning is shown by the development of fruit spurs, which is taking place along the main branches, and by the formation of the tertiary forks.

4. The same tree, pruned. It will be noted that no fruit spurs have been removed, but that the tree has been thinned out by the entire removal of superfluous branches, and has been cut back to outside buds, so as to spread the head of the tree during the coming season. The tree as pruned is well protected from sunburn, and will come into fruit early.

The illustrations on Plate II. are descriptive of—

5. A Bartlett pear-tree, "William's Bon Chrêtion," planted in 1897. This tree was treated in a similar manner to No. 2 in 1898, the extent to which it was then cut back being clearly shown in the illustration. It was summer, pruned last December, this latter pruning developing the fruit spurs on the older wood, and forming the tertiary branches. It will be noted that the tree is well balanced, and that the formation of narrow forks has been prevented, each branch having a firm hold of the main or primary branches.

6. The same tree, pruned. Being an upright grower, it is cut back to outside buds. No fruit spurs are removed, but superfluous branches have been cut right away.

7. A “Lady Palmerston" peach-tree, planted in 1897. This tree was cut hard back last winter, and the only treatment it received last summer was a little disbudding early in spring, and the shortening-in of straggling growths about Christmas time.

8. The same tree, pruned. It will be noted that a large quantity of wood has been cut away, and that the laterals have been carefully thinned and shortened in. This severe pruning is necessary in the case of the peach in order to produce large fruit, for if the trees are insufficiently thinned out they will produce a large number of small-sized fruits which are valueless for canning or drying. The tree, as pruned, will only carry a few fruit this coming season, but will produce strong fruiting wood for next year's crop. The pruning of the Persian varieties of peaches requires considerable judgment in this colony, owing to the fact that many varieties only produce their fruit buds on the extremities of the branches. Hence, if all laterals were cut back hard you would have no fruit at all. With such varieties, a systematic thinning out of superfluous branches without cutting back gives the best results. Chinese varieties of peaches, however, require to be both thinned out and cut back, as they are prone to overbear and produce small, unsaleable fruit.

Viticulture.

A DESCRIPTION OF SOME VINES GROWN AT THE
STATE FARMS.

VIGOROUS grower.

BY E. H. RAINFORD, Viticultural Expert.

No. 4.-THE MOURISCO PRETO.

Leaf-Large, almost round, five-lobed, not deeply indented; petiolar sinus open; colour bright-green, slight down below; teeth broad, shallow, and blunt. Bunch-Large, pyramidal, branched, and rather loose; stalk long, not very

thick.

Berry.-Large, round, and somewhat flattened at the end; reddish black in colour on long stalklets; juice sweet and agreeable.