June 1896.] GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. 



51 



lands in the world, are now profitlessly employed in supporting 

 less than one sheep to the acre, and that similar areas of the Peak 

 Downs, and great stretches of fertile plains west of Roma and 

 Barcaldine, all unsurpassed wheat soils,, are, like the Darling 

 Downs, given over to stock-keeping. The process of converting 

 these stock ranges into wheatfields is stated to be already 

 well advanced, the largest wheat-growers in the colony to-day 

 being the squatters. It is mentioned as a suggestive fact that 

 those squatters who, on the Darling Downs and elsewhere, 

 began extensive wheat- growing a few years ago, have, in nearly 

 every instance, and in face of the abnormally low price of 

 wheat, kept steadily at the business, gradually enlarging their 

 operations, and finding it the one profitable part of the years 

 operations. 



In view of these circumstances, it is believed that within the 

 next decade, and with no more than the stimulus of existing 

 prices, Queensland will not only meet her own requirements of 

 bread grain, but that she will add wheat to her exports of 

 wool, meat, and sugar. 



In answer to the question, " Does wheat growing pay ? " the 

 report states that it is un remunerative when the price drops 

 below a half-a-crown per bushel. The following figures are 

 given as the cost of producing one acre of wheat in Queensland 

 under the two systems of harvesting in vogue in the colony, 

 that is, where either the stripper or the harvester is used to 

 gather the crop. 



With the Stripper. 



With the Harvester. 



% d. 



Two ploughings - 11 0 

 Three harrowings - 2 0 

 Seed and sowing - - 3 0 

 Stripping and winnowing - 10 0 



s. d. 



Two ploughings - 1 1 0 

 Three harrowings - - 2 0 

 Seed and sowing - - 3 0 

 Cutting and binding - 5 0 

 Stacking - - 4 0 

 Threshing (Is. 8d. per bag) - 6 3 



Total - £16 0 



Total - £1 11 3 



Taking the yield per acre at 18-8 bushels (Queensland average 

 1894), the "gross return at 2s. 6d per bushel would be 47s ., 

 leaving a gross profit per acre of 21s. with the stripper an4 

 15s. 9d. with the harvester. 



To the account of cost must be added rent, taxes, if any, and 

 the cost of hauling the grain to markets, items that vary with 

 different localities, but the above estimates are said to be 

 sufficiently liberal to cover nearly every ordinary circumstance 

 of wheat -growing in the colony. For the light lands about 

 Roma several of the items of this statement of cost are believed 

 to be much too high. The cost of ploughing would, again, be 

 greatly reduced where double or treble furrow ploughs were 



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