SUGAR CANE AND ITS CULTIVATION. 
Tf a cane stalk be examined, there will be found at the node several’ 
rows of dots. These produce the roots when that portion of the cane 
is planted in the ground. 
The cane stalk consists of an outside hard rind, with soft tissue 
inside, with thin-walled cells in which are stored the sugar. Harder 
fibre vascular bundies are also found. ‘The leaves are manufacturers 
of sugar, and pass the material into the stalks. Chemically, the cane 
contains sucrose, reducing sugars, water, fibre, ash, gums, various 
inorganic and organic acids, nitrogen and non-nitrogenous bodies, &c. 
Sugar cane is essentially a tropical plant, and does best in tropical 
areas. The cane areas of Queensland situated north of the tropic 
are, therefore, best adapted for the production of sugar. 
When, however, the growth of sugar was first attempted in Queens- 
land, it was for a time wholly confined to districts near to Brisbane. 
The first sugar cane grown in Australia, and the first sugar manufactured 
therefrom, appears to have been in New South Wales, it having been 
stated in a Report on the Sugar Industry, made in 1880, by Mr. Henry 
Ling Roth—to whom I am indebted for many of the following details— 
that,: as far back as 1823, Mr. Thomas Scott, under the patronage of 
Sir Thomas Brisbane, Picimeded in growing sugar cane at Port 
Macquarie, in New South Wales, and manufacturing 70 tons of sugar. 
Mr. Scott worked hard, both practically and by ventilation of the subject 
in local newspapers, to prove that sugar could be manufactured in that, 
colony. 
A short résumé of the early history of sugar cane in Queensland 
may not be out of place. 
In 1849, proposals were made for the formation of a sugar company 
in South Brisbane, and there is said to have been a small plantation 
at Eagle Farm, on the Brisbane River, but apparently no sugar was 
made. Sugar cane was cultivated in the gardens of several ‘people in 
Brisbane about this time, and a considerable amount was also grown 
in the Government Botanical Gardens. The first sugar produced in 
Queensland, according to Mr. Walter Hill, at one time in charge of 
the Botanical Gardens, Brisbane, was made as follows:—Sugar cane 
was taken from the Botanical Gardens in December, 1859, and passed 
between two steel rollers. The juice was taken back to the Gardens, 
and about 6 lbs. of sugar were made in a copper vessel. ‘The first sugar 
made in Queensland of which there is any official record was manu- 
factured by Mr. John Buhot, in 1862. In 1863, Captain Louis Hope 
had 20 acres under cane on Ormiston plantation, near Brisbane, and 
that gentleman is generally conceded to be the father of the Queens-_ 
land industry. In 1868, the London Society of Arts offered a medal 
for the first ton of sugar made in the colony. The first sugar-cane 
plants were most probably imported from Java and Mauritius; and 
about this time the Queensland Acclimatization Society took active steps 
in bringing over a large number of varieties. A tremendous impetus 
was given to the industry when land was made available for some years 
by the Government on remarkably easy terms for sugar-growing; and 
in 1865 as much as 18,290 acres had been taken up osterisibly for cane * 
planting. Shipments of cane were this year made to New South Wales 
farmers for planting. 
0.17610.—3 593 
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