‘200 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 SeEpm., 189 
by irrigation or not is a matter for the cane-growers of the present day to 
consider. When I was last in Mackay, Mr. Davidson showed me a pateh of 
cane which he had irrigated, and thefe is no doubt that it looked far ahead of 
the non-irrigated cane. Mr. McCreedy has an irrigation plant on his property 
not far from Branscombe, and I am told that last year his returns were lower 
than where irrigation had been carried on, and last year was one in which the 
value of irrigation could well have been demonstrated. But to get good 
results from irrigation, drainage must precede it. 
The sugar-cane is a crop which withstands drought in a remarkable 
degree, but it cannot withstand excess of water. For example, while a crop of 
young cane will withstand a drought of three or four months, two months of 
heavy rain on undrained land will completely kill the crop. This was ae 
experience, when on the failure of the Bourbon cane J planted a field of B 
Java on the lowest portion of my plantation, which it was impossible to drain. 
When heavy rains came the land was saturated, and the plants turned yellow 
and sickly looking. A spell of dry weather, helped by surface drains, 
brought them round, but there were no ratoons next season. The roots 
died out. It is quite probable, as a Mackay planter tells me, that the 
Queensland farmers have lost ten times more from excessive rain on 
undrained land than they have from drought. It was well shown by Mr. 
A. Watt, in a paper he read on sub-drainage at the late Agricultural 
Conference, that drained land withstands drought much better than undrained. 
Draining allows of the work being done (especially planting) when the 
conditions of heat and moisture are most favourable to plant growth. Drained 
land is much warmer than undrained, for if the excess of water is not relieved 
by artificial drainage it can only disappear by evaporation, and thus reduces 
the temperature both of soil and atmosphere. : 
There is undoubtedly a certain loss from drainage, but is if any greater or 
indeed so great as where there is no drainage? I think not. A Northern 
correspondent states it as his conviction that in the Mackay district alone, had 
all the land been thoroughly drained, the output last year would have been 
more like 35,000 than 17,000 tons, despite the drought. 
These corsiderations concerning drainage are inserted here for the con- 
sideration of those scrub farmers who take up lands such as many of those I 
have seen -at Cootharaba, in the Noosa district, where a stiff yellow clay 
underlies a rather shailow superstratum of rich soil. It was here that one of 
the ill-fated co-operative settlements tried to found a home, and found that the 
land was unsuitable for farming operations. Here drainage would have been 
- of infinite value, although probably the expense could not have been borne by 
the community. ‘The scrub lands in this lake country are very extensive, and 
eventually, when scientific farming is the order of the day, large quantities of 
produce will be pontooned across the lakes and down the Noosa River to Brisbane. 
On the other hand thousands of acres of the scrubs between the coast and 
the main ranges overlie sandstone at varying depths, and can be cultivated 
without the necessity for drainage. Here oranges, lemons, &c., are grown to 
perfection; maize, potatoes, and other crops, which do not draw their food 
supplies from a depth, also succeed admirably ; but lucerne in such localities is 
invariably a failure. 
On ‘our rich scrub lands there are few crops that cannot be successfully 
grown, although for some, such as wheat, the very richness of the soil is a 
cause of failure until suecessive crops have brought the land into a condition 
favourable to their growth. Every possible care should be taken to avoid the 
introduction of nut-grass. It needs only a trip to the Albert and Logan 
Rivers to see how widely spread is this pernicious weed. Once it has taken 
possession, its eradication is, if not a matter of impossibility, at least doubtful. 
J hear from a correspondent that, having discovered-a patch of nut-grass on 
his farm, he did not dig it out, but just let it alone and planted buffalo-grass 
all round it. He is satisfied that this will wipe out the nut-grass as effectually 
“as it has done the Sida retusa. 1 
