92. 
Maize-growing on Serub Lands. 
By A, J. BOYD, 
Queensland Agricultural Department. 
Many enterprising farmers from the southern colonies have of late arrived 
in Queensland, some of whom have, in addition to taking up wheat lands in 
the West, also purchased homesteads on the coast. ‘These gentlemen are at 
once face to face with conditions of climate and cultivation to which they are 
strangers. One Victorian, who has made his home in Queensland lately under 
these circumstances, said :—‘* Wheat-growing I have been brought up to. I 
know how to manage on the Western country, but here, in this scrub land, is 
where [am at sea. Here is where I want instruction in clearing, in growing 
maize, sugar-cane, arrowroot, pineapples, &c., and here is where the value of 
your Department of Agriculture comes in.” It is with a view to assisting the 
new-comer to start properly, and to manage properly, a scrub farm that 1 give 
these hints, which are the result of many years’ experience, gained especially in 
the early days of rough farming in Queensland. 
Maize is one of the most favoured crops of the South-eastern and South- 
western farmer. Go where you will, from the Tweed River to Rockhampton, 
thence to the Main Range to Toowoomba, Warwick, Texas, and back to the 
Tweed by Killarney, Dugandan, &e.—everywhere maize is king, except, of 
course, in districts entirely devoted to wheat and other like cereals. It may be 
taken that about one-third of the cultivated land in Queensland is under 
“corn,” by which term maize is always understood; and when not under corn, 
much of it is temporarily occupied by that other great stand-by of the Queens- 
land farmer—potatoes. 
However, in this paper I propose to deal with the former crop alone, with 
a word or two, however, about pumpkins, which are inseparately connected 
with a maize crop. 
SCRUB LAND AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT. 
Scrub land and the methods of dealing with it are the same to-day as they 
were forty years ago. There is no royal road to taking a crop out of it. It 
must be handled to-day as it was handled by the first settler. 
Naturally the first work to be done is to get rid of the timber as fast as 
possible. One would suppose that there is no insuperable difficulty in doing 
this, given a few able-bodied men not afraid of hard work; but even in the 
simple business of felling the scrub timber, a man may make such mistakes as 
will lead him into considerable expense and, perhaps, cause him to lose a whole 
season. 
Scrub lands are not all of the same character. Some are densely timbered; 
the trees bound together with vines (lianas) in such a manner that even when 
a considerable area is cut through not a tree will fall. Add to this a dense 
undergrowth of smaller trees, shrubs, and clinging vines (lawyers), large 
clumps of wild bananas, palms, &c., as in our Northern scrubs, and it will 
be plain that a certain amount of skill and experience are necessary to clear 
away the tangled mass and bring it under cultivation. 
Again, there are scrubs which contain a quantity of most valuable timber— 
such as cedar, beech, hoop pine, kauri pine, yellow-wood, &c. Such are the 
scrubs of the Blackall Range, the Rosewood, and those yet standing on the 
high lands forming the watersheds of the Southern rivers—the Logan, Albert, 
