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1 Jan., 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 
Students at Agricultural Colleges. 
Tirav Queensland lads should seek to enter Southern Agricultural Colleges, 
and that on the other hand the youth of the Southern colonies should apply for 
admission to the Queensland College, is not at all surprising. Indeed, we look 
upon this choice of agricultural educational establishments as an evidence of agri- 
cultural federation. The climates of New South Wales and of Queensland are not 
uniform. Here we have not only the conditions of the more temperate southern 
climate, but we have also a torrid zone, which is only equalled by that of South 
Australia, or rather we should say of the Northern Territory of that colony, a 
territory commencing at about 26 degrees South latitude, and terminating on the 
shores of the Arafura Sea and of the Gulf of Carpentaria in the latitude of 
about 12 degrees South. Manifestly the conditions dominating agricultural 
industries in a colony whose latitudinal extent is from 81 degrees South, to 37 
degrees South, and those which obtain in a country whose borders reach to the low 
latitude of 11 degrees South, must be very different. In our Northern territory, 
if we only consider the cultivated areas as far north as Cairns, we find that the 
true tropical products of the soil are those which could not by any scientific or 
mechanical means be reproduced in any of the colonies south of Queensland. 
Take, for instance, rice, ginger, spices, coffee, tropical fruits and fibre plants, 
and even sugar. None of these, except perhaps sugar, can be produced south 
of Cape Byron, commercially speaking. They require the constant warmth 
and moisture of the Northern coast districts. Sugar can only be successfully 
grown in New South Wales in the Clarence, Richmond, and Tweed river 
country ; whilst Queensland can produce everything which can be profitably 
grown in the South. It has been said that apples cannot be grown to 
perfection in Queensland. ‘This is as fallacious a statement as the old 
mendacious story of the impossibility of growing cabbages on the Darling 
Downs. We have seen and tasted apples growing in the colony which were 
not surpassed by any we have seen in other colonies of Australasia, whilst as 
to apricots we have not yet seen any of this class of fruit either in Tasmania, 
Victoria, or New South Wales which could approach in size and flavour those 
of the Darling Downs and Stanthorpe. Again, where are finer strawberries pro- 
duced than in the Blackall Ranges not fifty miles from Brisbane, or at Towns- 
ville in the North? Or take our wheat country. The areas already under 
wheat cultivation and those eminently adapted for that cereal are practically 
illimitable, extending from the latitude of Barcaldine, west of Rockhampton,* to 
the neighbourhood of Brisbane. It is the same with other products such as 
barley, oats, lucerne, &c., whilst potatoes are successfully grown as far North 
as Cairns. When we come to consider such crops as sweet potatoes, yams, 
manioe, arrowroot, we find that Queensland is the home of these products. 
Now, taking these things into consideration, it will be asked why should a 
lad from New South Wales come here to learn the method of cultivating 
tropical crops which he can never hope to grow in the South? And on the 
other hand what can induce a Northern farmer's son to go South to learn what 
will probably be of little use to him when cultivating a tropical farm? As 
well might an Australian go to a Canadian Agricultural College to fit him for 
tropical agriculture, or the Canadian attend at the Kamerunga State Nursery 
at Cairns to learn how to provide for his farm stock during a North American 
winter. 
There is, however, a reasonable side to the question. Our Queensland. 
Agricultural College is yet in its infancy. It is certainly presided over by a 
thoroughly competent principal. It is also provided with a competent staff. 
It will, in a few weeks, have a complete chemical laboratory, and the students 
* The harvest at Barcaldine this season has been very successful, Some fields aresaid to have 
yielded over 30 bushels per acre. 
