. \ND 



'399 



up to the present time there has been a fairly remunerative market for its surplus in 

 New South Wales and Queensland, where the wheat mixes conveniently in the mill 

 with that which is locally grown. 



The rich alluvial lands on the east coast of New South Wales, where the growers. 

 from the first, have had the; advantage of easy access to the market, have been largely 

 utilized for the growth of Indian-corn, which is used for horse-fodder. The colony exports 

 largely to its neighbours, and would do so more extensively but for the intercolonial 

 tariffs. Oats are not very much grown in the mother-colony, but they are in New 

 Zealand, Tasmania and Victoria. In the same colonies, barley and hops are also 

 produced, but notwithstanding the brewers' demand, the cultivation has not reached any 

 considerable dimensions. On the eastern coast of Australia considerable attention has 

 lately been given to sugar. Within the limits of New South Wales it was tried on 

 most of the rivers north of Sydney, but it proved to be a commercial failure every-where 

 south of the Clarence and the Richmond. On the rich land bordering these two Rivers 

 it is now an established crop. All along the coast of Queensland sugar grows freely, 

 and the check to the industry is not the want of land, or any defect in the climate, but 

 the want of labour. Sugar has fallen in price to a discouraging point, and the abuses 

 connected with the coloured labour traffic have necessitated so 

 much Government restraint that it is not now easy to work 

 an old plantation, and there is no inducement to establish a 

 new o.ne, and the European labourers cannot work in the cane- 

 brush. But there is an enormous area of rich river-bank land 

 available for cultiva- 

 tion, whenever the la- 

 bour problem can be 

 solved. If the land on 

 the eastern coast, south 

 of the Clarence, is un- 

 available for sugar, it 

 has a scarcely less pro- 

 fitable use in dairy- 

 farming; and dairying 

 in Australia has of late 

 made great progress, 

 owing to the mechani- 

 cal improvements in- 

 troduced into the busi- 

 ness. The separators, 

 the butter and cheese 

 factories, and the freez- 

 ing apparatus by which 



butter and milk are carried cool to market, have all given a great stimulus to dairy 

 work, and for this branch of industry the rich alluvial coast-soil is pre-eminently suited. 



In a capricious climate like that of Australia, irrigation has naturally been much 



A CHINESE GARDEN IN AUSTRALIA. 



