376 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 May, 1899. 
reached 1,000 tons, for which he received £250. The season was a good one. 
The cane was past danger from weeds when he bought the property. No labour 
was required till crop time, so that the £250 was absolutely clear profit. 
The ’Badians would do well to come and take a lesson from Queensland 
growers, and learn something about the Central Mill system here. True, that 
system is yet, to some extent, in the experimental stage, butit is tending in the 
right direction, as the mills are paying off their indebtedness to the Govern- 
ment, and are furthermore making large additions to their plant and to their 
tramway systems. 
The Queensland crop generally averages from 25 to 30 tons per acre, 
which gives the farmer from £12 10s. in the South to nearly £20 in the 
North per acre. 
In Barbados 13°6 tons of cane are required to produce 1 ton of sugar 
under the present system, and the net cost to produce that quantity of sugar 
is £8 12s. 2d. The current price of raw sugar being £8 8s. per ton, the 
consequence is that a loss of 4s. 2d. per ton is experienced. The yieid of cane 
is much the same as in Queensland (25 tons per acre), but as sugar has been 
grown there for the past 200 years, the cultivation now has to be conducted 
very carefully and systematically, the soil being treated with artificial and other 
manures. ( 
In Queensland the average cost of 1 ton of sugar sold is between £6 10s. 
and £7 10s., and the quantity of cane crushed for 1 ton of sugar is a little © 
over § tons. be 
The price obtained for raw sugar last season was £8 13s. 4d., leaving a 
profit per ton of about 19s. ' : 
The returns and expenses naturally differ to some extent in different parts 
of the colony, but taken as a whole the above is about the situation in 
Queensland at present, and there must be some very exceptional conditions 
obtaining in Barbados if the planters there cannot make as good a living out 
of cane-growing at 10s. per ton as do the farmers in this colony. 
FERTILISATION OF THE CORFEE FLOWER. 
(By J. C.) , 
A goop many planters who will recognise the above initials know that I am 
keen on the crossing of coffee. Wishing them and others to be equally keen 
‘in a work which may eventually lead to the advantage of the whole planting 
community, I venture to offer a few hints as to how the details of the crossing 
may be put in motion. The process of fertilisation, if confined to individuals — 
of the same species, will only result in producing “varieties” of the indi- 
viduals concerned. But when it is extended to different species of the same 
genus, then an intermediate class of plants called ‘hybrids’ are produced. 
As this may not be quite clear to all, I shall give a practical illustration. 
When two bushes of OC. arabica are growing near to each other and flowering 
simultaneously, they will be observed to attract many insects of the winged 
class. It is a marvel where these insects come from in such numbers and at 
such short notice. But there they are, the whole day, hurrying to and fro 
from one bush to the other, until, perhaps, every newly-opened flower has been 
visited. 
Now, although these insects have been most industrious in their own 
interests, collecting food and building material, the chances are that they 
have unconsciously rendered a signal service to the coffee also, by carrying 
pollen from the flowers of one bush to that of the other. If they have done 
this, inadvertently or otherwise, the insects have effected cross-fertilisation to 
the extent of producing varieties or new forms of the two bushes concerned. 
By excluding the services of the insects altogether, the same results, and even 
more effectual ones, can be secured by delicaté manual operations. But of 
