QUEENSLAND 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 
(From tlie Queensland Daily Guardian , March 30, 1867.) 
SUGAR CULTIVATION IN QUEENS- 
LAND. 
PAPER READ BEFORE THE “ QUEENSLAND 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY” BY MR. STBACHAN. 
For many years it has been known that the 
sugar cane would grow and come to perfection 
in Queensland. But until lately there has 
been no means of knowing whether white 
labour could produce sugar in Queensland at 
such a cost as would enable it to compete with 
sugar produced by black labour in other coun- 
tries. The object of the present paper is to lay 
before this society a statement of what has been 
done towards solving that question. In 
Jamaica, the sugar estates are paying their 
expenses, and enabling the proprietors to live 
well and save money ; therefore, if I can show 
that the details of a sugar estate in Queensland 
can compare favourably with the details of one 
in Jamaica, it will be as satisfactory and more 
interesting than if I made this paper like the 
Dr. and Cr. sides of a merchant’s cash-book. 
Concerning the clearing of the land no com- 
parison ought to be made, since fine rich land, 
without a tree upon it, can be got in Queens- 
land for £1 per acre, which would be much 
cheaper than any land in Jamaica j or it 
might be land so thickly-timbered that it would 
cost £20 per acre before it was ready for the 
plough, in which case it would bo more expen- 
sive. But it might so happen that the thickly- 
timbered land, being on a navigable creek and 
having other conveniences, might be the 
cheaper land in the end ; therefore, clearing 
ought to be considered a part of the original 
cost of the land, which would be found to vary 
as much in Jamaica as in Queensland. In 
either country, let there be given a piece of 
land free from timber or other obstructions. 
In Jamaica, the field-overseer (or book- 
keeper as he is called, although he may never 
see the books) proceeds, with the assistance of 
two or three negroes, to mark off, on the 
ground, lines, four feet .and a half apart; he 
then marks other lines at right angles to 
the first, four feet apart ; at each 
place where these lines cross, a small 
stick is driven into the ground. The negro 
workmen then proceed with their hoes to 
make a hole, called the cane hole, where each 
stick is placed, about 18 inches square and 9 
inches deep, which is paid for at the rate of 3s. 
per 100 holes. Sometimes the land is ploughed 
previous to the cane-holing ; in which case the 
cost may be a little less than I have mentioned, 
but then the extra cost of ploughing has to be 
added. Grass seldom gives any trouble in 
cane-holing, because the land has generally 
been fly-penned previously. That fly-penning 
is the common method of manuring, and may 
bo thus described : A temporary stockyard or 
pen, made of bamboos, or sometimes of iron 
hurdles, is erected in one corner of the field, 
into which all the cattle on the estate — often 
three or four hundred — are driven in the after- 
noon, there to remain untill the next morning, 
during which time they have a plentiful supply 
of fresh cane tops as food. When the cattle have 
been four or five nights on that spot, three sides 
of the pen are taken down and re-erected, so as 
to enclose a fresh piece of ground, and so on 
until the whole of the ground has been covered 
by the moving or flying pen. The area of these 
pens seldom exceeds half an acre, so that the 
tramping of so many cattle on a confined spot 
puts a stop to the growth of grass for a time. 
The cane-holing being finished, the picaninny 
gang takes the matter up by the children lifting 
as many cane plants as they can carry in their 
