Nov. 2, 1903.1 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
31^ 
Our winter has been very mild this year. 
May, June, July and August are tL j cold 
months of the year in Australia. 
GAME IN THE GRASS COUNTRY. 
Within a morning's ride from me is a 
vast territory called the " Grass Country," 
and at ttiis Dime of the year generally 
supplies enormous quantities of game in 
shape of wild turkeys, wild ducks, wild 
geese and other game. This vast plain 
was completely under water during the rtiiny 
season, and my neighbour William Cook 
was obliged to go to market in a boat, 
disembarking on the Cairus road near the 
selection 1 am living on at present. 
Many selections have been totally aban- 
doned and the truit trees are bearing 
mango, orange, lemon, lime, guava and 
other crops. Some of these places can be 
bought very cheaply just now, that money 
is very scarce in Queensland. Iron roofed 
houses, stables, piggery, kitchen, garden and 
orchard going witn the fenced in selection, 
BAD TRANSPORT ROADS. 
The roads are very bad for transport of pro- 
duce. Instead of bridges they place logs of 
wood across two long beams, this is called a 
Corduroy Bridge and very uncomfortable 
they are both on horseback and on foot. 
The wood gets very slippery, and one night 
the writer fell through with a heavy load 
of provisions from Groondi ; s jmetimes tney 
are under water altogether and after the 
flood, some of the logs are -iticking up in 
the air ; theu the heavy cai ts and waggons 
used for transporting timber leave deep 
ruts on the road that fill with water and 
make walking very difficult indeed. 
I always feel knocked up for a day or 
two after a trip to town to buy provisions, 
and when t carried a load of sixty pounds 
of pumpkins into Goondi five miles and 
returned with flour, oatmeal, sugar, kerosene, 
candles, beef, bread and other provisions, my 
back ached and feet were sore. Some of 
your readers might ask why not use a 
pack-horse, t»ut my reply is simply this : 
the cost of horse»hire, and having to lead 
him is as bad as walking to say nothing 
of getting him over the Johnstone River. 
Australians as a rule do not believe in walking 
and carrying loads on their backs, they would 
rather spend four hours looking for and 
catching a horse to ride half a-mile. 
The past season beats the record for 
LONG AND HEAVY RAIN, 
in Geraldton about 250 inches having fallen 
in eight months, and the rain it raineth 
still. The Geraldton Races were postponed 
from Saturday to next Saturday, and each 
Saturday it is raining hard, twice I 
have been washed out ot my humpy. 
(A humpy is a thatched cottage) Every- 
thing in Queensland comes in lumps— too 
much rain— too little rain, and young plants 
suffer from too much rain and rot away, 
others get burnt up after ten days burning 
hot tropical weather, 
i'hese cold montns are our only chance of 
raising a few English vegetables, and every- 
thing in my garden is flourishing just now. 
Cabbages. turnips, potatoes, tobacco, pumkias. 
beans, cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes, onions, 
cotton, pineapples, bananas, papaw, pea tree, 
sweet potatoes three kinds. 
FLOODS AND HURRICANES. 
The coffee is looking very well just now, 
since the crop has been gathered and the 
bushes pruned. Roses in bloom, beautiful 
crotons, mulberry trees and th^ Lisbon lemon 
with its golden fruit; one gets very fond of a 
good garden. The worst of it is, when 
everything looks blooming and pleasing to 
the eye of man, a flood and hurric me oome, 
similar to the one that devasted the pretty 
town of Townsville very lately ; large 
buildings were completely swept away and 
the sheets of iron were flying about like birds 
on the win^. Even the hot^-ls and the 
hospital suffered, and many lives were lost 
—churches, schools, and large warehouses 
were in ruins. 
The people in other cities in Australia 
(or as people say now, in the Commonwealth) 
contributed very liberally to the relief of 
Townsville. Jieonta was the name given to 
the cyclone (Raging lion); Bowen and Charters 
Towers also suffered. 
Meanwhile the people of Australia are 
dissatisfied with their present Government 
and are crying loudly for reforms and 
reduction of expenditure, the labour party 
is not so popular as formerly an l it seems 
they have been tried in the balance and 
found wanting. HENRY COT TAM. 
THE MOSQUITO PLANT. 
(To the Editor of ths Timea.) 
Sir, — A reference has been made in the pipers to 
an article in the Paris Journal by Mc Charles Ray- 
mond, the dramatic anthor. Mr Raymond says that 
daring a long summer stay in Venice he effectually 
escaped moanuitoea by garnish! ug his windows with 
pots of the plant of the family Oci/ mnH hasilicuni. 
No mention is apparently made of the coriespondeuce 
whicn has already taken place on the subject, and it 
can only be asumed that Mr R lymond had never 
seen it when he wrote his article. As the accuracy 
of my own statements with reference to this plant 
his, on the recommendation of the authorities at Kew, 
been probably doubted by many. Lahonl'l feel obliged 
if you would be so kind as to add this further testi- 
mony to the properties of Ocijnum from such an 
impartial source. — I am, Sir your ooedieai servant, 
H. D. LAEYiioRE, Capt. R.A.. 
Junior U.S. Club, Oharles-street, S.W., Aug. 27. 
—London Ximes, Aug. 29. 
.# 
DAMASCUS " MOTHEK-OF-FEARL." 
Our Consul at Damascus mentions in h'n last 
report on the trading of his district that the "mother- 
of-pearl " so familiar as an inlay in all sorts of furniture 
and woodwork from Damascus is not real " mother- 
of-pearl" at all. It ia obtained from a common sort 
of fresh-water bivalve found in large quantities at 
Deir-el-Zor and other places on the banks of the 
Euphrates, and not from the Red Sea oyster, as la 
commonly supposed. If the latter were employed, 
the cost of the various articles which it serves to adorn 
would bo far greater than it is, the price of tne 
common shell being about Id per pound whereas 
the genuine article costs from Is to Is 7d per pound. 
" However, it can hardly be maintained that any 
deception is practised, because the eye, even of the 
amateur, can distinguish at once the difference be- 
tween the two, the exquisite Iridescent eheen, delicacy 
of colouring, and general brillianoy of the one bein^ 
entirely absent iu the other."— London 'fim^i. 
