1 Ocr , 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 303 
regards rainfall and summer and winter temperature. Mr. J. Danscy, 
Manager of the Mackay Coffee Estates Company’s property at Mackay, says 
that he has gone carefully through the figures prepared by Mr. E. Cowley, 
Manager of the State Nursery at Kamerunga, Cairns, and finds them substan- 
tially correct in the estimate of commercial coffee to the pound of cherry. 
The percentage, however, is apt to vary considerably, according to localities 
and the pruning the tree has undergone. In Mackay last season, a white 
boy, aged seventeen, picked on an average 120 lb. per day of ten‘hours; and 
had the trees been topped to a height of about 4 feet 9 inches or 5 feet, Mr. 
Dansey considers the lad would have very considerably increased this amount. 
He considers Mr. Hepburn’s estimate of an average of 3 1b. of clean coffee per 
each tree far above the mark, for, although some isolated trees will give as much 
as from 5 to 7 lb. of clean coffee, the average all round an estate of, say, 50 
acres would not be more than from 2 to 23 lb., and this would be considered a 
heavy crop. He calls our attention to the unfairness of saddling the estate, out 
of its first crop, with all expenses connected with the opening of the estate and 
its three years’ upkeep, &c., &c. In fairness to the product, it should be shown 
that once established the coffee-tree bears heavy crops year after year for 
many years; and that consequently, after the first crop, all is profit except for 
the yearly upkeep of the estate and the picking, curing, forwarding, &c. 
GUARANTEE SUGAR-MILES. 
Wr have received from Mr. E. Thatcher the following account of the 
Proserpine Central Sugar-Mill :— 
The development of the sugar industry in the Proserpine district is being 
keenly watched not only by Queenslanders, but by a large number of 
Victorians, as the industry was first started in this district by a Melbourne 
syndicate under the style of the “ Orystalbrook Sugar Company,” who imported 
a splendid mill, which was sacrificed (on the stoppage of kanaka labour) to the 
North Eton Central Sugar Company, of Mackay, for a trifle compared with its 
original cost. 
The advent of “ The Sugar Works Guarantee Act of 1893” again revived 
the industry in the district; and by the indefatigable efforts of Messrs. Waite, 
of Breadalbane, The Glen Isla Proprietary Company, of Melbourne, G. Pott, 
P. Neilsen, R. E. Sexton, and others, sufficient areas were cultivated to induce 
the Government to erect one of the finest and largest central mills built under 
the Act. 
The plant stands upon a site given by the Glen Isla Company, on the 
banks of the Proserpine Kiver, and the clearing of the site was commenced 
in 1896; the erection of buildings and machinery following immediately. 
Messrs Walkers, Limited, of Maryborough, made and erected the 
machinery. 
Owing to the capacity of the plant and the small acreage under cane, it 
was deemed advisable to postpone the crushing till 1897, to allow of an 
increased area being planted, and, consequently, the mill did not start opera- 
tions until the 20th of September of that year, and manufactured 1,350 tons 
of sugar from 10,900 tons of cane produced from 400 acres of land. 
The tramway system of this mill consists of nine miles of permanent line 
and six and a-half miles of portable, 1 8-ton locomotive and 200 cane trucks, 
which will be taxed to their utmost this season, as the company have sufficient 
cane to make about 2,200 tons of sugar. 
The district is splendidly adapted for the cultivation of cane, and the 
sugar-content ranges very high. : 
There are splendid farms on the Breadalbane and Glen Isla Ireehold 
Estates still open for selection on very easy terms, and large tracts of Crown 
lands of excellent quality and in close proximity to the mill. The price paid 
for cane this season is 12s, per ton on the company’s trucks, 
