35° 
T HE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [November 2, 189 1. 
and sides is in hand. The permanent building for a 
canning factory about to start will cost ,f2,5O0. In 
August 1887 there was but one old squatter's house 
and a few huts, also 15 tents occupied by intending 
settlers. There are now over 500 houses and H,150 
inhabitants. The Shire Council, constituted in Janu- 
ary 1890, gives thereteable property at t40,0U0. The 
customs revenue last year (goods imported in bond) 
was £3, 512. Shipping entered and cleared (river 
steamers and flats) for last year was ll.S vessels of 
l.S,192 tons, employing 798 men. There are a post and 
telegi'aph office, customs house, state school (cost 
£3,000 and enlargements sliortly to be made), bank, 
saving, banks, six general stores, numbers of special 
stores as saddlers, milliners, &c., a coffee palace (cost 
i'4,000,) a foundry, workshops, and steam printing 
press. One paper, the Mildura Cultivator, got up in 
excellent style is published there. There is no public- 
house in the settlement, and the law is framed, both 
here and at Renmark, to prevent the retail sale of 
liquor. The effect of this is extraordinary, and fur- 
nishes an object lesson which will have wide effect 
in time. The firm has sold all the town lots, all the 
villa sites, and about 20,000 acres of fruit land : most 
of it is sold on a system of instalments spread over ten 
years and involving heavy interest charges. The 
areas actually planted by the middle of June were — 
588 acres oranges, 225 lemons, .S68J apricots, 30 peach, 
55 olive, 75 fig, 45 prune, 750 raisin vines, (38 wine 
grapes, 76^ zante cvirrants, 78 various and nurseries, 
total 2,359 acres. Planting has been in full swing 
erv&r since and will go on to middle of September. At 
least 3,000 acres must be put in this season, and the 
Company has ordered IJ million cuttings from a single 
firm in Adelaide alone. Several tons of raisins were 
turned out this year. The characteristics of Renmark 
are the same as those of Mildura except that the place is 
newer and the land is not so high above the river, the 
irrigation will therefore cost less and blocks near the 
river are still available for purchase. Of the parts 
that I saw there was a larger proportion of the very 
best land in Rennjark than at Mildura : and taking 
it all in all I agree with the more recent arrivals from 
England, who are mostly selecting land at Renmark. 
Compare the life of a young man started in one of 
these, with the man who has made an average start 
in any profession. Compare the cost of starting a 
young man here with the cost of bringing him up for 
one of the professions ; and compare the average re- 
sults of the two starts in life ! I do not expect all this 
to have much weight on my single report and advise 
further reference to the following papers : — 
1. — The Australian Irrigation Colonies: a pamphlet 
containing reprints from official reports of the Victo- 
rian Water Supply Department, and from Australian 
newspaper reports. 
2. — The July number of the Adelaide Garden and 
Field containing the South Australian Agricultural 
Bureau's report on their recent visit to Mildura and 
Renmark. The members of this Bureau are all prac- 
tical men, engaged in growing fruit, wine-making, 
farming, cheesemaking, &c., or business in connection 
therewith. 
3. — Specimen number, July 1891, of the Mildura 
Cvltinator, printed and published at Mildura. 
4. — Memorandum of terms and conditions of sale 
of the Renmark irrigation lands, issued by the Chaffey 
Irrigation Colonies Co., Ltd. 
I commend these to the most careful attention of 
Anglo-Indians who are looking out for the same sort 
of opening that I have been. They contain full infor- 
mation. If several of us were to take contiguous blocks 
we could save the division fences, or about £14 on 
every 10 acres. By working together those who are 
present at any time can look after the interests of 
the absent, and, as the custom of business is, the com- 
bined interests representing a large area will get 
more consideration than the separate units would and 
can always ol)tain sundry convenient concessions. 
With this view I went very carefully over the land 
around Renmark, iiiid selected a piece of rich, open. 
Handy-loam of a strong red colour within three miles 
of the township, ii.iid aliout two furlongs from the 
jiiJiin avenue, which will Ije the first to have a 
tram liuc 9U it, The soil is in every respect bettor 
suited for irrigation than ahnost any I have seen 
during over tw enty years' experience on Indian canals. 
There is a small ridge just suited for building on above 
the irrigated land. The land is lightly timbered with 
Murray pines and other easily uprooted sorub : it will 
not cost much to clear. The pine is not attacked by 
termites or borers, and is therefore valuable for fencing 
and house building. 
Messrs. Chaffey are alive to the probable advantage 
of getting a number of retired Anglo-Indians with 
fairly good means to settle on the land, and have 
courteously marked out a block of 20 acres of this 
land which they will reserve for applicants through 
me for one year, i.e., up to the end of July 1892, but 
on the condition that the purchasers of this reserved 
land hny for read;/ moneu. Adjoining this is the land of 
Lord Deramore ; in, I think, slightly inferior soil. 
The map of it will reach me a few days hence. There 
is no fear of losing by the purchase of this land, it 
will rise in value day by day with the progress of the 
settlement, just as similarly situated land at Mildura 
has already done. I wish I had the money to buy 
and plant the whole of it. The man who puts in a 
vineyard or orangery at a cost of £45 to £62 per acre, 
and then does not care to keep it, can easily sellout at 
a considerable advance whenever he wishes, for set- 
tlers — men with money and meaning to buy, are arriv- 
ing in numbers, six and eight a day sometimes, and 
money is circulating rapidly. A mere money profit is 
a certainty, but tlie splendid open for permanent settle- 
ment is what I am looking to. I will be glad to hear 
from any persons willing to join with me on this reserved 
200 acres. Those who wish for independent inquiries 
can v/rite to the Chaffey Irrigation Company, Limited, 
King William Street, Adelaide, for all particulars. 
The colonies can be seen in ten days from Adelaide, 
or a very interesting tour can be mapped out to take 
in Adelaide, tlie river Murray by steamer from Morgan 
to Mildura, doing Renmark en route, then up the Dar- 
ling by steamer to take Merrindi, and across by coach to 
the great silver mines and rising town of Broken Hill, 
and then back to Adelaide by railway : about £30 will 
cover the whole trip, with a large margin for extras. 
2, Alexander Terrace Glenelg, S.Australia. 
— Pioneer. 
MUSAS. 
This handsome group includes several species and 
varieties of value for conservatory decoration where 
space is ample, and during the summer some of them 
are also useful for out-door tropical effects, for 
which their bold leaves make them particularly de- 
sirable. When planted outside, however, the Bananas 
should have a somewhat sheltered position, for 
when exposed to the full force of the wind the leaves 
are often split and torn. These plants are gross 
feeders and enjoy rich soil, and respond to liberal 
treatment generally. Another point in their favour 
is, that they are but little subject to insect pests, 
unless surrounded by infected plants of other species. 
The true Banana, Mum .la/nenfuin, is rather too 
large a plant to be included in a small collection, 
but the variegated form of this species, M. .■iaidentum 
viftata, is an extremely handsome one, and is not 
quite so rampant in growth as the type. This variety 
is perhaps the most striking member of the genus, 
the leaves being oblong in form and the ground 
color bright green, on which are many stripes and 
blotches of white. The fruit is of little value, but when 
planted out in a warm house, and at the same time 
encouraged in growth by a moist atmosphere and 
plentiful watering at the root, it makes a verjr effective 
specimen. The propagation of this form is accom- 
plished by means of suckers, which, in common 
with most of the members of this genus, it produces 
in uioderate number. 
The Chinese Banana, M. Carendishii, is quite 
dwarf in habit, and has been frequently fruited under 
glass, for when full-grown it seldom reaches more 
than eight feet in height, and has often been fruited 
when about six feet. Its leaves are from three 
