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332 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Ocr., 1897. 
Coffee-growing in the Mackay District. 
By D. BUCHANAN, 
Manager of the State Nursery, Mackay. 
Ir should bea matter of congratulation to all interested in the progress of 
Queensland agriculture, to see and know the efforts that are being made to 
establish the coffee industry in this district; the number of people that have 
come here to ask for information and to see for themselves afford proof that 
coffee-growing is to become an item in the farmers’ programme, if it does not 
eventually become a rival of cane-growing. I know that objections can be 
urged against entering into the industry: The Hemelia may find its way here— 
the flying foxes may eat the cherries—the drought may kill the crop—the price 
may fall, &c., &c.; but all other branches of both horticulture and agriculture 
are subject to the same calamities and are likely to continue to be so. 
Notwithstanding the wail of the pessimist, however, the idea and the work are 
progressing. Not that there is as yet any large breadth of coffee planted, but 
preparations are being made, and the demand for seed, by even the intending 
small growers, has been far beyond the supply available at present at the 
nursery. Many people failed last year to get the seed to grow, some through 
their own fault in the sowing, although with all parcels sent from here this 
season full instructions have been supplied, which, if carried out, must result 
in success. j 
Some months ago several people expressed their fear that as coffee-growing 
required a certain amount of scientific knowledge, the ordinary farmer or 
cane-planter would not succeed, but that hallucination, I think, is now pretty 
well corrected. I have drawn my conclusions from the fact of seeing, for 
seyeral years, isolated coffee bushes growing at their own sweet will, getting no 
assistance in any way, but yet perfectly healthy and bearing large crops of 
fruit. Seeing the health and vigour of these trees convinced me that the 
climate and soil of the Mackay district were eminently suitable for coffee 
cultivation, and thanks are due to Mr. Dansey and his company for taking the 
initiative in this direction. I am quite convinced that there are few farmers 
in this district who have not a few acres of their farms quite suitable for eoffee- 
growing, and the cane-farmer is just the man who can make a beginning in 
coffee-growing. The man who has no capital cannot do it. He has three 
years to wait before he can get any returns, but the cane-farmer, who has a crop 
to go to the mill, has got money to lift. It may be possible that not much of 
it is his own, but still he has something to go on with, and, when the year 
arrives that his coffee yields half a crop, it will considerably add to his income. 
There is a prevailing opinion that a large amount of labour is required in coffee- 
planting, but this is a mistake—it is but a tithe of the labour necessary for 
cane-growing. If the planting is carefully (diagonally) done, so that a horse 
can be employed in two or three directions in the rows, there will be very little 
hoe work required, whilst horses may be worked amongst the trees for four or 
five years, but where the coffee-grower is also growing cane it will pay well to 
cover the whole of the coffee ground with cane trash. ‘This will keep the weeds’ 
down for twelve months, and thus neither horse nor hoe will be required ; this 
plan will not only save labour, but it will keep the moisture in the ground; and 
as the trash rots, it forms a manure for the benefit of the plants. To facilitate 
this work, the space between every fourth and fifth row ought to be wider than 
the rest, to allow of the passage of a cart for several years to draw the 
trash in; and as the latter can be put close up to the stem of the coffee plant, 
the lower branches lie upon it, and the cherries are thus kept clean. A farmer 
came in the other day and remarked: “Don’t you cut these bottom branches 
