1 Avrit, 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 251 
for cotton, which Dr. Lang had, long before separation, advocated as a 
crop which would succeed in Queensland. Almost simultancously with the 
collapse of the cotton industry, owing to the cessation of that war, came 
the first attempts at sugar-growing, initiated by the Hon. Louis Hope, at 
Cleveland. 
Gradually this industry was taken up and spread over the Southern portion 
of the colony, until sugar became one of the great factors in the building up 
of the agricultural interest. With one or two serious checks, this industry 
has grown to its present grand proportions. Then came the wheatgrower, 
who made his tentative efforts on the Downs. By degrees, as it was found 
that that country was suitable for its cultivation, wheat established itself, and 
eventually, as estates were cut up and sold, more men went in for wheat- 
growing, until to-day the tablelands above the Range produce nearly 1,000,000 
bushels annually. In the same manner expansion has taken place in the 
dairying business. 
The old order has passed away. Dairying has become a science ; 
ereameries and factories exist in all farming centres; no longer is butter © 
imported into Queensland; the colony has become an exporter of this com- 
modity. Fruit is now grown in quantities from one end of the colony to the 
other, and oranges and bananas, together with other fruits, form a regular 
article of export to the southern colonies: With irresistible force agriculture 
is pushing its way ahead. Every assistance is afforded to farmers and horti- 
culturists by the Government to enable them to obtain cheap and good land 
on easy terms of payment, to assist them to combat the various difficulties 
under which they labour, to enable them to find markets for their produce by 
reducing the cost of carriage to the coast, by pushing out railways into the 
established centres of agriculture and towards the rich lands of the interior, 
and by lessening the burden of taxation on agricultural machinery. 
Favoured in this manner, new lands are daily being placed under .cultiva- 
tion, and new phases of agriculture are coming to the front. Coffee and rice 
have already passed the experimental stage. Ramie and other fibres are 
being experimented on, and will ere long become items in our exports. Land 
under cultivation has risen from 3,250 acres in 1860 to over 925,000 acres in 
1899. The magnificent plains of Central Queensland, the rich scrubs of the 
Northern coasts, are rapidly being brought under the plough, and what is now 
required is population—a population of yeoman farmers to carry on the work. 
Queensland with barely 500,000 souls presents to-day a picture of agricultural 
prosperity which is simply. astonishing, and there is room for many more 
thousands. ‘These 500,000 people own 180,000 head of dairy cattle and 
100,000 swine. They produce between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 lb. of butter 
and 2,000,000 lb. of cheese annually, and 6,000,000 lb. of bacon and ham. 
They turn out 150,000 tons of sugar, 1,000,000 bushels of wheat, 18,000 
bushels of rice, 3,000,000 bushels of maize, $1,000 Ib. of eaftee, 16,000,000 
dozens of bananas, 6,000 ewt. of tobacco, 290,000 gallons of wine, 5,000,000 lb. 
of grapes, 1,500,000 dozens of pineapples, and yet have to import £800,000 
worth of agricultural produce annually. Here then we see that there is room 
for a large expansion in agriculture. Here is an opportunity for thousands of 
good men to make comfortable homes for themselves and their families, ‘and to 
build up a nation of Anglo-Saxons which shall stand out as a bright and unique 
example of what the British and Teutonic races are capable of accomplishing 
under the wise and equitable laws of British rule. 
The progress of agriculture in Queensland can best be gauged "by a perusal 
of the table here given. In the early days of the colony the various districts 
were not so clearly defined as they are to-day, for the country had only just 
emerged from the chrysalis stage in the leading strings of New South Wales, 
and was only on the eve of developing into the fully matured butterfly. During 
1880, and in previous years, no distinction was made in the acreages of English 
and sweet potatoes, both being included under one head; hence they are so 
included in the table of statistics for those periods. 
