B44 ©. QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. _ {1 May, 1898, 
THE COCKATOO FARMER. 
By A. J. BOYD, 
Queensiand Agricultural Department. 
Tie great strides made in agricultural reform during the past few years would 
give colour to the remark of a late visitor to the Queensland Agricultural 
College, that—‘ The day of the cockie is past.” And this would appear to be 
the case to anyone who has only visited the splendid farms on the Darling 
Downs and on other great plains in different parts of the colony. Not only 
on the rich treeless plains do we observe the higher forms of agricultural pro- 
cedure, but they are also in full evidence in districts which were once heavily 
timbered, such as the land bordering on the Bremer, Brisbane, Logan, Albert, 
and other south-eastern rivers. Further inland, we see still more evidence of 
scientific farming, as at Laidley, Gatton, Forest Hill, Rosewood, and in other 
directions, as, for instance, on the North Coast line from Nundah to Yandina. 
Everywhere the farmers, whose lands haye long been cleared of timber and 
stumps, have adopted the latest styles of farm implements. 
Jn the dairying districts, again, we see a vast improvement in dairy stock 
and in swine. On ull sides the value of the silo to the dairy farmer is being 
recognised, and by-and-by we shall hear no more of stock starving for want of 
feed, since it has been clearly demonstrated that an expenditure of £40 or £50 
will enable a farmer owning from 30 to 50 head of stock to tide over a pro- 
spuged Gry season, or by a larger well-directed expenditure to defy a drought 
altogether. 
vives it may be observed that the old slab and bark or shingle-roofed 
“humpy”’ has everywhere on the plains and on older scrub land given place 
to the neat well-built ‘frame house,” or, as we should eall it in Queensland, the 
weather-board cottage with its cool verandas and surrounding garden. The 
only blot on the scene is the universal iron roof. Red tile roofs would add 
much to the picturesque beauty of the homestead, besides being far cooler 
than iron and not very liable to damage from any but the most violent hail- 
storm, which would completely riddle an iron roof. 
Here we may utter a word of censure. Whilst steady improvement has 
been the order of the day in the method of field-work, in implements, buildings, 
and stock, little thought has been bestowed upon the unhappy pig. While 
some farmers take care to make these valuable but despised animals comfort- 
able, there are a greater number who take no trouble whatever about them. 
They either allow them to run about shelterless in a bare paddock, or they box 
them up in a filthy log sty, knee deep in mud in wet weather, with no 
protection from the driving rain, and constantly short of water in a dry time. 
As to feed, this is thrown to them either amongst the muck, or it is put into a 
trough which is never cleaned out, and besides all this, that food consists in 
many cases of every description of offal to be found on the farm, such as dead 
calves, rotten meat, and damaged produce of all kinds, with sometimes a treat, 
a trough full of skim milk and water mixed with a little pollard. 
We have already pointed out how, at comparatively small expense, these 
poor animals could be made comfortable and happy for the short period of 
their lives. In Vol. II., part 2 (p. 112), of this Journal will be found an 
illustration of a pig-yard which would amply repay the farmer for building, 
What sensible man would expose stud sheep, horses, or cattle to such 
unnecessarily crue] treatment? And yet stud swine, though in their way 
equally valuable, are housed in a manner calculated to induce and perpetuate 
all kinds of diseases which render the flesh of the pig unwholesome and even 
dangerous as human food. How often must we repeat that the pig is a clean 
animal by nature, and revels in cleanly food and surroundings? ‘There is no 
more pernicious idea than that pigs are dirty livers and dirty feeders. They 
are merely omnivorous, and this very quality makes them so valuable to the 
farmer, but it certainly should not induce the idea that any muck is good 
