74 "QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Jan., 1898. 
say 150 eggs a year, the result would be 15,000,000 eggs from 100,000 hens, or 
1,250,000 dozens. At 4d. per dozen, the return would amount to £20,853, or 
nearly £21 per annum per owner. Besides this, there would be always plenty 
of table-fowl for home use, and cockerels and pullets for sale. As for the aged 
fowls, when no longer profitable, they would naturally, as an American paper 
puts it, “find their way to the hencoops of the steamship companies, to railway 
refreshment-rooms, where they are put to very profitable use.” 
Now, here we have quite £21,000 per annum additional wealth from only 
a small fraction of one section of the community. Of course, it is not likel 
that poultry will ever take precedence over all other industries; but it is patent 
that there are possibilities of revenue production in the poultry of Australasia 
which have never yet been developed. 
TOBACCO IN VICTORIA. 
Iv order to encourage the growth and proper curing of tobacco, the Govern- 
ment of Victoria have offered a bonus of 3d. per lb. on all tobacco leaf exported 
from the colony, subject to the approval of Mr. Bondurant, the Government 
expert. The payment is not to be made on more than 8 tons to any grower. 
It is to be presumed that Mr. Bondurant will not pass any tobacco which is 
not sufficiently good in quality to do credit to the colony. Otherwise Victorian 
tobacco may start in European markets with a bad reputation from which it 
would be difficult to recover. 
The blue mould has swept the majority of the tobacco crops of the King 
River clean away. This, following the glutted and low-priced market of last 
year, is a crushing blow to the industry. The fine crop of plants at the 
Experimental Farm has suffered. Mr. Bondurant said, when he first saw the 
blue mould (which is never experienced in the United States), that he thought 
the best remedy was to strengthen the plant itself, and he pointed out ways in 
which it was weakened here under the existing system. Thisis proved to be 
goodadvice. Inone of the plantations on the King, a couple of acres of plants 
have resisted the mould. ‘They are last year’s plants, which, after cutting was 
done, had been covered up and left in the ground like hops. This is the 
custom frequently followed in Southern Europe. The plant revives from the 
old roots each year, and it is said that the crop improves every year. In a 
district like the King River, which suffers so severely from blue mould, this 
method should be worth a trial.— Australasian. 
THE DEPOPULATION OF ENGLISH VILLAGES. 
SrEAKinG at a meeting of a Conference on Christian Economies at Birming- 
ham in October last, the president, Mr. Walter Hazell, M.P., said there 
was no question of the reality of ‘agricultural depression and evils that 
followed therefrom. The cause appeared to be the great abundance of produce, 
which was affecting farmers all over the world. Between 1875 and 1895 two 
million acres of land were laid down to grass, and a quarter of a million 
labourers with their families were displaced. Nowhere was the depression 
more keenly felt than in the village chapel. (Hear, hear.) Wherever a 
population was dependent upon agriculture, they found deeply-rooted depres- 
sion. He thought something should be done to make life in the country more 
worth living. (Applause.) If that could be done, the country people would 
not be found anxious to migrate. They wanted a better Agricultural Holdings 
Act that would enable the farmer to get from his land the whole fruit of his 
industry, cheaper means of transit, State loans to provide for better dwellings 
and for the improvement of the land. There was also a need for farming 
education, the agriculturist being too strongly attached to old methods. 
Where dairying, fruit-growing, and market-gardening were practised, things 
were not at all bad. 
