244 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Sepr., 1897. 
Sugar at Bundaberg. 
We reproduce this month some illustrations of field operations on Messrs. 
Gibson Bros.’ sugar plantation at Bingera, on the Burnett River, Bundaberg. 
These were taken by Mr. I. C. Wills, artist to the Department of Agriculture 
and give an excellent idea of the method of working a plantation. 
Bingera, which is situated fourteen miles from Bundaberg, is one of the 
finest estates in the district, and is managed by the proprietors on the most 
rigid principles of efficiency and economy. In the present article we shall 
confine ourselves to the outdoor operations, leaving description of the sugar- 
house, the machinery, the milling, and sugar manufacture for our next issue. 
Bingera consists really of three estates worked from a common centre—viz., 
Watawa, The Cedars, and Bingera proper. These are all connected with each 
other by a railway eleven miles long, on which four engines and a large number 
of cane trucks (single and double), such as are used on the Government main 
lines, are busily employed in conveying cane to the mill, a vast establishment 
in which is a plant with every modern appliance for disposing of 600 tons of 
cane per day of twenty-four hours. This means 3,000 tons of cane every week, 
equal to the produce of about 120 acres, or over 800 tons of first and second 
sugars. Owing to the dry weather during the growing season, the present 
erop is not turning out so heavy as was expected ; and for the same reason the 
cost of cutting and loading is greater than would have been the case had the 
rains come at the proper time, and consequently enabling the cane to make a 
longer growth, resulting in a heavier crop. This season the cost of cutting 
amounts to 1s. 6d. per ton, loading into the drays from 6d. to 7d. per ton, and 
thence into the railway wagons 3d. per ton. 
To one who has never seen a large sugar estate in full working, the sight 
in the fields is most interesting. Gangs of kanakas are busily engaged in the 
various operations of cutting, topping, and trimming the cane ready for loading. 
Others load it into the tramway trucks which are laid down in sections branching 
from the main permanent tramways. 
To take, however, our illustrations in due order, we will begin with 
the preparation of the ground and planting the cane. The steam and other 
ploughs and harrows having reduced the soil to a proper state of fine tilth, 
straight furrows are drawn by a plough of the double mouldboard type, which 
makes one furrow 8 inches deep into which the plants are nicely laid. The sets 
used formerly to be planted at regular distances of 6x 8or 6x 4 feet, but 
now the plan is that of continuous planting—.e., the plants close to each other. 
By adopting this method, misses are avoided, and uniformity in the subsequent 
erop is secured. As the cane plant is laid in the furrow, the labourer covers 
it with from 8 to 4 inches of fine mould. 
Our illustration shows the field hands carrying on this work in rear of the 
ploughs. Like all other crops, the after cultivation consists in keeping the 
young plants free from weeds until they cover the ground and stifle the weeds _ 
to a great extent. 
The crop having arrived at maturity, which it does in about ten or eleven 
months, the field will present the appearance shown in the second illustration. 
Here we have a field of cane eleven months old. This field has carried a 
continuous crop of cane for ten years, when it was decided to plough out the 
