50 



GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. [June 1896. 



Wheat Growing in Queensland. 



The Annual Report of the Queensland Department of Agri- 

 culture for the year 1894-95 contains interesting information 

 on the development of wheat-growing in Queensland. The 

 statistics of wheat production in the Colony reach back to 1867, 

 when 2,657 acres were in cultivation, while in 1894 the total 

 area of wheat amounted to 28,997 acres. Although there has 

 been a substantial gain in the 27 } T ears, the increase is regarded 

 as almost trivial compared with the development of wheat 

 culture in Argentina and the United States. That this slow 

 movement is not due to any failure on the part of nature to 

 respond to the efforts of cultivators is shown by the fact that in 

 the last 16 years Queensland has 10 times stood at the head of 

 the Australasian colonies in the yield of wheat per acre, and 

 only three times has she been the lowest on the list, while the 

 average yield of the Queensland wheat fields during this period 

 is nearly five bushels per acre above the average of the other 

 four colonies for the same time. It appears that wheat-growing 

 in Queensland has not progressed by leaps and bounds, for the 

 same reasons that farming in general has not advanced at a 

 rapid pace ; the counter attractions of squatting and mining 

 have been too great for the would-be farmer, and few of the 

 colonists have been farmers. 



The following table shows Queensland's annual production 

 and importation of wheat and flour for each of the 10 years 

 ending with 1894: — 



Year. 



Wheat 

 Grown. 



Importations. 



Bushels 

 Imported 

 to each 

 Bushel 

 Grown. 



Wheat. 



Flour. 



Total Wheat and 



equivalent of 

 Flour in Wheat.* 





Bushels. 



Bushels. 



Tons. 



Bushels. 





1885 - 



51,508 



10,297 



33,820 



1,701,297 



33 



1886 - 



21,221 



19,364 



36,451 



1,841,914 



86 



1887 - 



182,308 



53,101 



44,202 



2,263,101 



12 



1888 - 



8,263 



16,719 



39,994 



2,016,419 



244 



1889 - 



134,335 



109,588 



41,371 



2,178,138 



16 



1890 - 



207,990 



326,484 



41,122 



2,382,584 



11 



1891- 



392.309 



261,086 



33,433 



1,932,736 



4-9 



1892 - 



462,583 



269,487 



36,324 



2,085,687 



4-5 



1893 - 



413,094 



372,559 



34,188 



2,081,959 



5 



1894 - 



545,734 



415,734 



34,004 



2,115,934 



3-8 



As regards the possibilities of the future in the direction of 

 an extension of the wheat area, it is pointed out that millions of 

 acres of the Darling Downs, which are among the best wheat 



* The millers' figures of 50 bushels of wheat to the ton of flour are used in this 

 computation. 



