Comments

Aboriginal Horticulturalists

1913, Tuesday 29 July. Clarence and Richmond Examiner (Grafton, NSW : 1889-1915), p.4

Mr. W. J. Fryor, teacher of the Aborigines school at Nymboldn, brought to our office on Saturday a large head of cabbage of the Savoy variety, grown by the pupils on the land near the school. It weighs 15lbs., and was taken from a plot on which there are others that would turn the scale at a respectable figure. The Aboriginal pupils take kindly to gardening, and raise many descriptions of vegetables on the land, which, it may be stated, is not part of the alluvial flat near the river, but elevated country, and therefore not classed, as the most fertile. Two afternoons per-week, the native children are instructed in the art of gardening, for which they show an aptitude, though naturally the aboriginal is not a soil tiller. The instruction thus

imported is of a useful character, and the Australian native is taught the fact what the land of his nationality is capable of producing when the principles of industry are properly applied.