June 1950 School Magazine

Tune, 1950

:Brisbane Girls' Grammar Scho.ol Magazine

Brisbane Gil'ls' Grammar Scho.ol Magazine

Tune, 1950

the research station with its attached block of vines and explained all the research work which he was doing most carefully to me. As a matter of fact nobody is supposed to go into the pumping station, which is enclosed by a high barbed wire fence on three sides and the Murray on the fourth. There was a very high padlocked gate on one side too, with a great notice on it saying, "Keep Out", but as the gate was unlocked and being curious, we sneaked in. We peered cautiously inside the station which was full of great red and blue painted pipes twisting convulsively throughout its length, beside which ran iron platforms, and on top of which at intervals were dotted lighted indicators. There was some sort of a machine making a deafening racket in there too, and nobody seemed to be about. We were just discussing how easy it would be for a saboteur to throw a bomb into the place when we caught sight of someone coming in at the other end and dashed madly out and up the hilL Here we came upon the Murray looking darkly sinister in the pale twilight. At this point and for some distance along its length, the banks of the Murray drop down in sheer convoluted red cliffs, sometimes 200 feet in height. One of the settlements in the Sunraysia district is, in fact, called Red Cliffs. And this made a weirdly attractive sight, dark red in the dying sunlight, the drab stunted grey green acacias now silhouetted in sharp black outlines on the opposite bank. At the research station I peered down the microscopes, which had adjustable sights for both eyes and were very powerful indeed, at slides of grape flower buds, a lovely tracery of orange lines streaked with grey and saw the grape in the yet unopened flower. I admired a fearsome collection of assorted bugs and moths, all neatly named and pinned out in folders, which attack grapes and grape vines, looked at a large map of the district which showed its various types of soil in different shades of colour, listened to a learned disserta· lion on the constitutents of different types of sprays for killing weeds and plant viruses; went into the dark room which is always kept at an unpleasantly humid temperature, and which is completely dark, and by the light of a small infra red light looked at some plant hormones. We also toured the blockJ of grape vines and ate a great many currants, fresh ones that is. My brother told me the correct method of 28

pruning and training grape vines, how and when to irrigate and harvest them, and a great many more things besides. But if you are still reading and still want to know what he said, I'm sorry to say that I've forgotten nearly all of it. However, here is what I found in a book which he sent us on the subject. · "Harvesting of currants usually starts al:;>out February lst and is followed by harvesting of other vine fruits, most of which are off the vines beore the end of March and dried by the middle of April. The pruning of vines begins towards the end of May after leaf-fall, and is completed during the period of winter dormancy. During the late winter, spring and up till harvest, the vines are alternately cultivated and irrigated about four times, the irrigation water being made available to each holding on a roster system." And from memory, the types of grapes grown around Merbein are the very small sweet currants which are dried, a larger type which when dried are called sultanas, and a very large white eating grape called a Gourdo. When I was there the drying racks were all empty but they consist of a series of racks or shelves one above the other out in the open air, a roof being over the topmost shelf. The vines are all trained along trellises, the trellises being of different heights with different grapes. After I had seen everything and sampled the station's grapes a nd peaches my brother's friend presented me with a treatise on th e diseases which affect tomatoes as a memento of my visit and after I had thanked them all for their kind attention we went away. It was all most interesting and most instructive. -JANET ANTCLIFF

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- L. MURPHY, l!LB.

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