98 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[A 



UGUST I, 



November 1879, it was fenced ready for planting, andtlieu 

 trenched twenty inches deep. The plants from the old 

 garden had to be conveyed to the new ; and as a most 

 rigid economy was enforced, Mr. Holtze, in the early morning 

 and late night, before and after superintending the oper- 

 ations of the day, carted them himself, and got notliing 

 ' more tangible than thanks for doing so. And now the 

 reader knows the history of the place, and it is important 

 that he should, to appreciate the sequel, as I describe it 

 as I saw it two years and fom months after its establish- 

 ment. I ask him to bear particularly in mind the fact 

 that only so short a time ago tlie land was thickly covered 

 with .iungle, and that the soil is merely second-rate. 



To reach the gardens you branch off from the telegraph 

 line on the road to Southport, and continue to ride for a 

 mUe through high grass and patches of thick jungle. The 

 position of the place is picturesque in itself, and it com- 

 mands a grand view of sea and seabeach, backed by distant, 

 hazy, shghtly rising land. The residence of the Director 

 is built upon what are knomi as the " Northern Territory 

 Government architectm-al lines." and the artistic effect is 

 not wholly bad, whilst the comfort of the person residing 

 in the erection is faudy promoted. There are huts for the 

 Chinese gardeners, and there is a place in which a little of 

 the produce can be stowed, but a seed-house and a few 

 other structures are badly wanted. Mr. Holtze's salary is 

 only £250 per annum, with quarters, and the amount voted 

 for the gardens last year was, besides, but £500. This year 

 it wa5 £4,100. 



Seventeen Chinamen are employed. Two of them get 25.S 

 a week each ; two more, 20s ; and the rest only 15s, without 

 rations in each case. Mr. Holtze gives them an excellent 

 character. He prefers them to Em-opeaus for garden-work ; 

 and he has had both working and ought to be capable of form- 

 ing a judgment. He remembers, of course, that men slaving 

 nine hours a day, wet or shine, for 15s a week, cannot 

 be expected to be over-energetic, unless they are pretty 

 thoroughly overseered. Granted that reservation, he says 

 that, whilst they certainly are " slow," they work well 

 and 'get through more than any Europeans he has had 

 ever got through whilst they were with him. 



I got this information from Mr. Holtze ere we had gone 

 into the gardens, ^^^len we had done that, I had an opport- 

 unity of seeing the men at work, and they put in a 

 great many strokes to the minute whilst we were look- 

 ing on. "When their master's back is towards them, how- 

 ever, they are not, I have since found, too eager to injure 

 themselves by over-exertion, and yon really cannot expect 

 them to be with such pay, when they know Europeans 

 would get £6 at least. 



The examination of the gardens was the greatest sm-- 

 prizB I have had in the Territory. A wilderness a little 

 more than two years ago is now an umbrageous paradise. 

 AccUmatized trees shoot aloft and tower above the native 

 ones outside full twenty times their age ; they bear most 

 luscious fruit, in quantity unstinted. Creepers indigenous 

 to a foreign soil planted here have run at once over the 

 place and now grow everywhere in wild profusion : and 

 many herbs, well known and grown down South, after a 

 year of cultivation here attain an immense size and spread 

 weed-like through the adjacent land. Each area of the 

 garden is only another greater wonder than the last, and, 

 if I but eared to wax rhapsodical I certainly could not 

 be justly charged with wanting warrant for it. 



But I do not choose to go into rhapsody, and so I will 

 condescend to the ijractical, with some little detail as to 

 the most prominent experiments and their results. 



First, as to sugarcanes, of which there are eight variet- 

 ies, spreading over sixteen acres, in the gardens. Mr. 

 Holtze aflarms that it is bad this year, because he would 

 not cut the last year's crop till the end of December, 

 haviuf orders to have some sent to Delissaville 

 for crushing— the crushing which proved, through cert- 

 ain blunders, so disastrous. Through this the canes lost 

 Bix weeks' growth, ami Mr. Holtze fee's very much annoyed 

 at the result. Yet everybody outside agi-ees tliat tlio canes 

 are grand auccesses, though they are a trifle less satisfact- 

 ory in appearance than were those of last year. When 

 I visileil the <rarden some of 'hem had made six or seven 

 feet of " cane," and that is almost twice as much as any 

 else I have seen here have done. Of course it should he 

 ^ euibmbei-^cl ^bat these grew from the rattoons. Speaking 



of the growth of sugarcane in the Terrritory, Mr. Holtze 

 says — and it will be of interest to give the result of his 

 experiments — thit it should be in by the commenci'ment 

 of October. DeLiasa and others planted in December, and he 

 predicts that their crops will not be one-half so good as they 

 might have been. In sngar-culiivation generally he thinks 

 it would be better for the first year or two to plant only 

 cane-heails, and take the old roots up, and also to observe 

 some rotation of crops, alternating the cane with something 

 else. An idea of the important work the gardens have done 

 for the promotion of the suRar-growiug industry of the coun- 

 try may be gained from the fact that 140 tons of cane have 

 have gone this season .alone from them to the various pri- 

 vate plantations and a little to Chinese gardeners. The 

 latter further took, including a few to Europeans, 8,000 

 banana phmts and 13,000 pineapple trees. This year the 

 numbers already are respectively 2,000 and 5,000. All these 

 are given away. The cane i.s even cut at the expense of the 

 Government and thus the garden gives no return whatevet 

 except a very untangihle one in the shape of fruits for Go- 

 vernment officers and fodder for their horses. Mr. Holtze 

 suggests, — and I believe the planiers do no'- object to the 

 suggestion — that a small charge should he levied for the care 

 at le.ist — say a couple of pounds a ton. Then the persons 

 getting it would enjoy a great advanlago, which they would 

 not have, had they to sinp the plants from Queensland, 

 and in the latter case they would not get them in nearly 

 so fresh a slate. Besides the planters, many diggers and 

 settlers npcountry are getting seeds from the gardens. 

 Mr. Holtze tives the carters those of the foreign grasses 

 he has proved to be best adapted to the soil, and gets 

 them to scatter them all over the country in the 

 neighbourhood of their camps. The pineapples and bana- 

 nas thrive even better than the sugar cane. I tasted all 

 three— I have tasted so many tropical fruits and veget- 

 .ables this trip that I believe 1 could name them each by 

 flavour ten years hence — and 1 found them all that could 

 be desired. The sugarcane particularly, with its soft, sweet, 

 soppy juice, keenly appeals to one's susceptibilities. It 

 reminds him of the days when he, hke the pulpy cane, 

 was in his infancy. 



Going through the sugar acreage one naturally wants to 

 know where the white ants have been th.at the crop should 

 be so healthy. I closely examined each plot, and only in 

 a few cases were there any signs of the ants. Mr. Holtze 

 has a wholesale contempt for them ; .and, when you ask 

 him whether he thinks the little pests will be a consider- 

 able factor iu the planters' losses, you see an indignant 

 man. He opposes to the ants arsenic and potash, and 

 the common so-called remedy of carbolic acid he impeaches 

 with Teutonic warmth as "nonsense." "It is all very 

 well for the first time, so long as the smell is there," he 

 says, " but when it leaves the ants are coolly walking over 

 the powder and taking it to whitewash their cells with. 

 Now I dilute my arsenic .and potash in hot water, and 

 take sugar and flour and mtike a paste, \yhenever I 

 see white ants I make a hole and fill it with a spoonful 

 of the mixture. I never have the least trouble with 

 them. Arsenic," he points out, " is a never-ending poison. 

 The father ant takes it and dies. His sons affectionately 

 eat him .and they die ; their mother and sisters devour 

 them, and all give up the ghost, and so destruction goes 

 on for ever." If his be the true solution of the ant 

 difiiculty, it certainly is a very inexpensive one. Fom- 

 years ago in the old gardens he bought a half cwt. of 

 arsenic: half of that he has still. With wh.at is gone he 

 has conquered the ants. 



Maize is the next principal crop in the garden, and it 

 is looking as well as it can look anywhere, notwithstand- 

 ing that it is- the third crop in a year. Eice simply 

 floiu-ishes, strengthening the evidence I have had through- 

 out that the Northern Territory will be a great rice- 

 growing country. Only the hill kinds arc tried in the 

 gardens, because the ground is too high for the swamp 



varieties. „ , „, -,-,., i. 



Cinchona has not been successful. The seeds did not 

 even come up, and Mr. Holtze maintaiu.s that the 

 climate is too hot for it:— "It is all very well 

 to say that it thrives in Ceylon, but there are 

 lugh mountains there. We haven't got those mountains." 

 On Messrs. Poett and Mackimion's plantation at Rum- 

 jungle, however, the seeds have germinated, iind the little 

 plants look healthy enough. But then the climate is 



