1 Jan., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 15 
A great deal of watering and hoeing will, however, be saved if mulch is 
used as already advised. The importance of mulching cannot be over-estimated. 
Almost anything will do—stable-manure, grass, or litter of any kind, provided 
it can be easily and conveniently placed around the plants. Mulching prevents 
the ground from baking after watering, and so saves hoeing ; and it also helps 
to arrest evaporation, thus saving watering ; and also it tends to keep the 
temperature of the surface soil equable, and so tends to promote healthy and 
vigorous root-action. I confidently recommend mulching for any kind of 
vegetable crops which require transplanting, and am sure that the grower who 
tries it once will never give it up again so long as he aims to get the best 
possible results from his work with as little labour as possible. 
SHEEP-BREEDING ON THE DARLING DOWNS. 
BAST TALGAI-HENDON. 
Wen the enterprising pioneers of the pastoral industry in Queensland left 
the mother colony in search of fresh fields and pastures new, they at once 
directed their steps towards the then newly-discovered Darling Downs. 
Bringing their flocks and their herds with them, they travelled through New 
England, then a settled district, and spread over the eastern portion of the 
Downs from Warwick to ‘’oowoomba, the country farther to the west and at 
a distance from the Main Range being gradually absorbed, until within a very 
few years nearly the whole of what ig now known as the Darling Downs was 
taken up and more or less stocked. 
The country was then purely pastoral. There was, to begin with, but a 
scanty population, and it was almost universally supposed that the agricultural 
capabilities of the district were n¢l. ; 
~ On the other hand, in spite of initial difficulties and the usual ups and 
downs of pioneering life, the squatters did well on the whole; fortunes were 
made and—lost again. When the western portions of the colony began to be 
taken up, there was a brisk demand for all classes of stock, especially breeding 
sheep, large lines of flock maiden ewes being sold for stocking the Western 
runs at £1 per head and upwards. The runs were then all held as squattages. 
For miles the country lay open without a fence, and for many years sheep 
were shepherded, the present almost universal system of paddocking being 
~ unknown. 
All this is now changed. The agricultural capabilities of the district 
have been gradually discovered and developed. Legislation has prepared the 
way for close settlement with a rural population, the old squattages have been 
long ago broken up, and though sheep-raising is still one of the most 
important, if not the staple, industry of the Darling Downs taken as a whole, 
yet it is now universally acknowledged that, in a large portion of the district 
and on freehold land worth from £2 to £6 and more per acre, wool-growing 
pure and simple will no longer pay. 
The pastoralist must give way to the agriculturist, or he must perforce 
become more or less of an agriculturist himself. He must combine farming 
with stock-raising, and develop to the fullest extent the capacities of his 
country. Recognising this fact, many large freeholders have within the past 
few years rendered the greater portions of their properties available for close 
settlement either by cutting them up themselves or by selling to the Govern- 
ment under the provisions of “* Lhe Agricultural Lands Purchase Acts of 1894 
and 1897.” Whether, in time, the pastoralist will altogether give place to the 
wgriculturist with small holdings, time alone will show ; but it would seem that 
even in the most thickly-settled and richest farming districts on the Darling 
Downs, comparatively large properties are likely to remain in the hands of 
some of the present proprietors, and that they can be worked by them at a fair 
