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Sugar Grov^iiig and its Manufacture. 



By W. S. Campbell, Department of Agriculture. 



The cultivatiou of tlie sugai'-cane and the manufacture of sugar from 

 it liave within the last thii-ty years developed into a very important 

 industry in that semi-tropical portion of New South Wales^ which is 

 the north-easternmost corner of the colony^ and the most easterly 

 portion of the Australian continent. 



It does not seem to be generally known that the sugar-cane was one 

 of the first of the exotic plants introduced into Australia in a.d. 1788. 

 It was obtained by Governor Phillip, at the Cape, with other plants, 

 on his voyage to form a settlement at Botany Bay. These exotics 

 were planted somewhere near the site of our present Custom House 

 in Sydney. AVhether the sugar-cane made any progress there does 

 not appear, for history has not supplied any further particulars respect- 

 ing it. 



About thirty-three years after the arrival of Governor Phillip, a penal 

 settlement was established at Port Macquarie, at the mouth of the 

 Hastings Eiver. Three years afterwards '' at a Government plantation 

 established at Port Macquarie, some sugar was manufactured from 

 cane grown on the spot. Six hundred acres were planted with the 

 cane, and it was stated that the sugar and rum produced repaid the 

 Government for the outlay incurred." This plantation, according to 

 the Sydney Herald, 1832, was situated on Wilson^s River, a northern 

 tributary of the Hastings. It was formed by the late Mr. Thomas 

 Scott, who introduced the sugar-cane from the tropics in 1822. Mr. 

 Thos. W. Scott, of Port Clare, Brisbane Water, son of the late Mr. 

 Scott, informed me that from the first crop of cane which his father 

 succeeded in producing, he made 70 tons of sugar, which was sent to 

 the Commissariat Stores in Sydney. Shortly afterwards the penal 

 settlement was abandoned, and nothing further was cai-ried out to 

 develop the sugar industry. Mr. Thos. Scott, who was the pioneer of 

 this industry in A:iEtralia, was born in the year 177G, and died so 

 recently as 1881, having attained the great age of 105 3- ears. When 

 a young man he managed his father's sugar plantation in the West 

 Indies, where he acquired his experience. For many years, indeed up 

 to the time of his death, Mr. Scott strongly advocated the cultivation 

 of the sugar-cane in New South AVales and Queensland, and it is 

 probably due to his perseverance that the sugar industry finally became 

 established and developed into its present importance in both colonies. 

 For upwards of thirty years he was a constant contributor to the press 

 • — the Sydney Morning Herald, the Ernjnre, and the Queenslander — on 

 the subject. In 1838 he made a small sugar plantation at Port Clare, 

 Brisbane Water, near Gosford, and manufactured small quantities of 

 sugar there which he distrilmted about this colony and Queensland for 

 public inspection. For his services in introducing the industry, he 



