Vol. VIII. No. 85. 
IMPERIAL INSTITUTE JOURNAL. 
[January, 1902.] 
1 
o 
and 33 Chinese were put on to keep up the supply of cane, thus requiring 228 men to perform 
the work towards the end of the cutting season which was done by 213 men during the 
cooler months at the beginning. The records do not show any white men to have been 
engaged in the cane cutting. 
In considering stability in the performance of work, the white labour has to be divided 
into two classes, namely, the permanent hands who are employed the year round as team 
men in the fields and as skilled workmen in the mills ; the men of this class arc usually 
picked men of good habits and of good health ; it is found that in the main they remain in 
their positions, and are generally stable. in the performance of work where the conditions of 
nature allow of continuous labour. The second class of white hands is required only during 
given seasons of the year ; in the lield during the cutting of the cane where this may be 
partly dune by white men, and in the mills during the crushing season, consequently 
instability amongst them becomes a part of their conditions, and there is a notable measure 
of unreliability amongst them. It is found, however, that the instability is greatest in the 
Northern district, where the personal endurance of work is the lowest ; and much of the 
instability is to be put down to sheer inability to do given kinds of continuous work in those 
natural conditions. 
The conditions of nature in the north render continuous labour by the white man, even 
in the kinds of work reserved to him by the law, a great physical strain and difficulty, while for 
the classes of u'ork such as trashing and cutting cane, which are done by the lower types 
of labour, the white man is practically unlit. This is emphatically supported by the state- 
ments of a high medical authority, in the course of an enquiry concerning the action of the 
climatic conditions in the Northern sugar district of Queensland. 
The report next deals with the employment of mechanical and chemical aids in the 
industry. The ploughing and preparation of the land for planting, and the cultivation and 
cleaning during growth by means of implements worked by horse power, are reserved for 
white labour by the provisions of the Acts ; these provisions are violated, it is true, but to a 
decidedly limited extent. There are certain operations equally necessary to the production 
of the cane crop, which the white labourer has shown a disgust for and frequently declared 
his inability to perform, namely, hand- weeding, trashing and cutting of the cane, and these 
are done by the Pacific Islanders. The trashing of the cane, which consists in removing from 
the stem every dry and fading leaf which has ceased to perforin its functions, although im- 
peratively necessary in many districts, and mostly so in those conditions of climate where the 
white labourer is the least able to perform it, is being neglected, yet at a great cost in the 
quality of the cane juice. 
Great efforts are being made to invent a machine for cutting the cane and thus bring it 
into the sphere of the skilled labourer. Six different devices have been submitted to the 
Queensland Government, but it is not possible at this date to indicate how soon a satisfactory 
device for the purpose will be available. 
Lands on which sugar cane is grown suffer great deterioration in their chemical 
condition; thus the crops of the small cane-growers at the Herbert River decreased from 
40 tons per acre to 16, 13, and 12 tons, and the returns of some individual farmers in North 
Maekay showed a production reduced to merely 4 or 5 tons of cane per acre, whilst in other 
districts as low as 7 and 8 tons of cane per acre are recorded. The average yield of cane to- 
day throughout Queensland is about 15 tons per acre, against about 40 tons per acre during 
the earlier years pf the industry. The exhaustion of the soils is shown in the following 
table : — 
Contained in 
Virgin Soils, 
per Acre, 
tb. 
Contained in 
the Cropped Soils, 
per Acre, 
lb. 
T ,OSS of 
Elements 
per Acre, 
Per cent. 
Lime . . . 3,747 2,538 37-2 
Potash . . . 747 432 42 ‘2 
Nitrogen. . . 4,650 3, 2 4° jro 
These data set forth the causes of the weakened producing power of the soils ; their 
immediate yielding power has been seriously impaired, but by modern methods of cultivation, 
rendering available the reserve stores of plant food, and by returning to the lands those 
elements which are being removed, the producing power can be restored. Time, however, 
will be absolutely essential, and also the secured freedom of the farmer from any embarass- 
ments which could result from interference with the agencies by which he is carrying on 
his work. 
The volume of the Queensland sugar crop can be gathered from the following table. 
The lowness of the igoo crop was due to extreme drought. 
Year. 
Acres Crushed. 
Weight of Sugar. 
Tons. 
Yield per Acre, 
Tons. 
1897 
. 
. • .. 65,432 
97,916 
I '49 
1898 
... 
82,391 
163,734 
1-98 
1899 
■ 
79,435 
123,289 
1 '55 
19OO 
• 
72,651 
9 2 ,554 
1 '27 
The mean production of the four years was 119, 373 tons of sugar, with a yield per acre 
of I ‘59 tons. 
The prices of raw sugars of 88 per cent, net titre, f.o.b. at Queensland ports, for the 
season commencing 1st July, was £8 per ton, with a bonus which is estimated to have added 
£1. 19s. per ton, thus making a total of £9. 19s. per ton. The price of best white sugar in 
bond at Brisbane Jrom January to June, 1901, was ^16 per ton, this with the duty of ^5 
makes £21 per ton. 
New South Wales. 
The areas embraced by the cane-sugar industry of Australia commence in the north 
upon the 16th degree of latitude and extend south, covering the districts of Maekay, 
Bundaberg, and the border sub-district of the Logan, and finally descend into New South 
Wales, where the sugar-cane made for itself a home and a history on the hanks and elevations 
of the Tweed, the Richmond and the Clarence rivers. The records show that in 1864 
2 acres of sugar-cane were grown in New South Wales ; in 1898 14,578 acres of cane were 
grown and 29,110 tons of sugar were made. In 1899 the acreage was 9,435 ; the cane 
weighed 170,509 tons, a yield of 18 tons per acre, and 15,352 tons of sugar were made. For 
the same year the production of Queensland was 1,176,466 tons of cane, or 14-8 tons 
per acre. 
The cane interest of New South Wales is of the very highest economic importance to 
the districts of its location, and should the industry suffer a relapse or go down, such a 
calamity would carry further interests and the general prosperity of the districts down with 
it. The mean acreage per grower in New South Wales does not exceed twenty acres, 
which is less than one-half that of the Queensland growers, which is 42'6. Mixed farming 
is much more extensively practised in connection with cane-growing than in Queensland ; 
maize being grown upon a considerable scale, and dairying being conspicuously developed, 
yet cane-growing is looked to as the main industry and the keystone of the continued 
prosperity of the sugar districts. If the sugar industry disappeared, the home market for 
dairy products would largely disappear too, since the large number of white hands engaged 
in sugar work are the chief consumers, and the best customers of the mixed farmers. 
In New South Wales the amount of hired labour in the fields is relatively less than 
in Queensland ; this is due to the areas cultivated by individual farmers being less than one- 
half the size of what they are in Queensland, The hired labour in the fields is chiefly white, 
but it is supplemented by Pacific Islanders, Hindoos, and some Asiatics, The trashing 
of cane, however, is done wholly by the Hindoos or Islanders. The cutting and "harvesting 
of the cane is done chiefly by the mills ; if the farmers cut the cane themselves the mill 
allows 3s. per ton for the work. The cutting is done sometimes by white and sometimes 
by coloured labour. The conditions are more suitable for the t( endurance ” and “ stability ” 
of white labour than in Queensland. The number of aliens employed in the sugar 
districts is 933, comprising Islanders and Hindoos. The mean compensation to white 
labour for work in the Cane fields is £1. 8s, per week. Cane cutting is done by contract 
and on terms whereby the men can earn 7s. per day ; they work from daylight till dark. 
Thus the climatic conditions enable the white man to perform work and earn a rate 
of compensation which are utterly out of question in the sugar districts of the North. 
The wages paid to alien labour are very variable, ranging from a little more than one- 
half the white man’s daily rate, up to an equal rate during the scarcity of labour at the 
crushing season ; the factor of alien labour is not so prominent as in Queensland, as white 
labour is more easily obtainable from the centres of population in the south and iLs efficiency 
is greater. 
If the conditions and costs of labour in the sugar districts of New South Wales arc 
considered, then the laws and results observed in Queensland are found in a more 
accentuated form. The labour co-efficient of the white labourer is more pronounced, while 
the alien sinks in prominence and concern. From this it appears that the labour powers in 
the climatic extremes of the sugar areas are made to economically compensate each other ; 
the higher efficiency of the Pacific Islander, at a relatively less cost, who predominates 
numerically in the Northern districts, counter-balancing the dominating efficiency of the 
white labourer, who prevails in greater numerical strength in the districts of the South, 
and whose labour stands at a relatively low cost in those districts when compared with 
the North. 
SUGAR-CANE EXPERIMENTS IN THE WEST INDIES. 
A large amount of experimental work is being carried out under the direction of the 
Imperial Department of Agriculture for the West Indies, with the object of improving the 
sugar-cane to such an extent that its cultivation will again prove remunerative to the planters. 
The lines upon which the work is proceeding have already been described in this Journal 
(Vol. Vi., p. 126, and Vol. vn., p. 210), and here it will suffice to say that at present 
attention is being chiefly devoted (1) to ascertain the varieties of cane most suitable for the 
particular local conditions, the main points aimed at being a heavy tonnage of cane per acre 
and a high yield of sugar, and (2) to determine the manurial requirements of the sugar-cane. 
The report on the experiments conducted in the Leeward Islands (Antigua and St. Kitts) 
during the season 1900-1901 has just been issued in two parts, which, together, make up 
1 10 foolscap pages, and well illustrate the amount of work which the enquiry entails. 
Dealing first with the experiments on the selection of canes (Part 1. of the report), it 
may be noted that although sugar is the staple industry in both islands, yet until recently 
the only variety of cane grown in Antigua was the Bourbon, while in St. Kitts only two — 
the Bourbon and the Caledonian Queen — were cultivated. A large number of other 
varieties, many of which had already been tried elsewhere, were therefore available for 
experiment, and the most promising of these are now under observation. In Antigua nine 
experimental stations, the ground of which varies from very heavy clay to light calcareous 
soil, have been established, and at the principal one 34 varieties of cane were under 
cultivation, while to each of the other stations the 14 best varieties were distributed. The 
results obtained may be illustrated by the following table, giving the yield of cane sugar 
from the six best plant canes ; — 
No. 
Name of Cane. 
Cane, 
Tons per Acre. 
. J uice. 
Gallons per Acre. 
J uice. 
Gallons per 
Ton of Cane, 
Cane Sugar. 
Pounds per 
Gallon of Juice. 
Cane Sugar, 
Pounds per 
Acre. 
l 1 , 
D. 95 . - - 
28 '2 
3,931 
1 39 '4 
2-075 
8,158 
2 
Mont Blanc 
27 - I. 
3 , 5*8 
I 32'4 
2 - 022 
7,256 
3 
Naga B. . . 
26 '2 
3,574 
137-0 
I -996 
7 H 54 
4 
Burke . 
27*6 
3,646 
132-1 
i ‘ 95 2 
7,117 
5 
D. 102 . . . 
27 '3 
3,681 
134*8 
1-897 
6,984 
6 
Red Ribbon 
25*4 
3,402 
134*9 
2-035 
6,923 
Of the above, the first two, D. 95 and Mont Blanc, occupied the same positions 
last year ; Naga B. was fourth, Burke was ninth, and D. 102 was eleventh. Several of the 
canes show a loss of position when compared with last year’s results, the most noteworthy 
being the Caledonian Queen, which was formerly third and is now ninth, while D. 116 has 
fallen from the fifth to the thirteenth place and B. 147 from sixth to twelfth. This, 
however, may be due to the difficulty experienced in getting these canes to start growing, 
owing to the drought which occurred after they were planted, and they were consequently 
somewhat handicapped throughout the season. On the other hand, one or two of the very 
easily established canes, such as the Burke and B. 109, obtained a much better position this 
year than last, probably for the same reason. The weights of cane per acre, as well as the 
amount of sugar in the juice, were in excess of those recorded last year, and D. 95 has 
again yielded the richest juice and the heaviest tonnage of cane, being second only to 
B. 147 in the amount of juice expressed by the mill. The trials have shown that the 
Bourbon canc, which was formerly exclusively grown, is much more liable to attacks by 
rind fungus than many other varieties, and is consequently not so suitable for cultivation. 
On only three plots were the canes reaped as ratoons, and it is interesting to note that five 
of the six canes which give the best results were included in the six best plant canes of the 
previous year, from which the ratoons were derived, though the order is slightly different. 
This would seem to show that good plant cancs also possess good ratooning powers. In 
this series D. 95 has been surpassed by White Transparent and Naga B. in the proportion 
of sugar in the juice, while B. 147 and D. 95 are again noteworthy as yielding a high 
percentage of juice on crushing. 
In St. Kitts, 20 selected cane varieties were grown at seven stations, and, as the soils here 
are much more sandy than those of Antigua, different results were to be expected. The 
figures for the six best plant cancs may be quoted for comparison with those already given : — 
No. 
Name of Cane. 
Cane. 
Tons per Acre. 
Juice. 
Gallons per Acre. 
Juice. 
Gallons per 
Ton of Cane. 
Cane Sugar. 
Pounds per 
Gallon of J uice. 
Cane Sugar. 
Pounds per 
Acre. 
I 
B. 208 .. . 
3 S-8 
5,055 
129-8 
1-947 
9,817 
n 
Naga B. . . . 
39 ’I 
5,067 
129-6 
1-767 
8,956 
3 
B. 147 • • • 
37 -8 • 
5,057 
133-8 
1-755 
8,874 
4 
B. 376 .. . 
39 -i 
5,052 
129-2 
1-688 
8,526 
5 
D. 1 16 . . . 
386 
5 U 53 
I 33-5 
1 '609 
8,290 
6 
D. 74 ■ - - 
35‘3 
4,606 
* 3°\5 
1-735 
7,992 
The percentages of juice obtained from the canes and of sugar in the juice were both 
lower than in Antigua, hut the tonnage of cane per acre was much greater, and, owing to this, 
the yield of sugar per acre was also greater. B 208 has so far given better results than any 
other cane, while Naga B. and B. 147, both well-known varieties, come second and third 
