1 Ave., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 115 
Queensland, many of whom are not in a position to obtain very necessary domestic 
help, and are debarred from using that which could occasionally be made available: 
This is very seriously affecting the proper education of farmers’ ‘children, many being 
compelled to work at a very early age. Concern is being felt because the favourite 
Berkshire pig is deteriorating, getting heavy in the shoulder and neck, which are 
cheap, and light in the loin and hams, which are the best paying parts. [ would like 
to draw the attention of the Government to a much more serious fact—namely, that the 
constitutions of the married women of North Queensland are being undermined in an 
alarming degree, in some measure by climatic influences, but in a much greater owing to 
the insufficiency of domestic help. An eminent doctor in Sydney, with a large experience 
in this matter, quite recently said toa lady friend of the writer, “I do not believe there is 
a thoroughly sound married woman in North Queensland. Ido not know how a woman 
can live there, they have to work too hard.” I commend this matter not only to the 
Government, which can and should make the necessar help available, but also to those 
women in Queensland who make their sex’s interest their chief care and study. It is 
pretty generally admitted by all who have tried them that cane tops have no value in 
milk producing, although they tend to fatten. Tt is said dairying would furnish very 
necessary manure for our canefields. The gathering of the tops would require con- 
siderable labour in the midst of crushing. Where it would come from T don’t know, 
but this I do know: that the trash could be buried for less than it would cost to remove 
it, and that it would be much more beneficial to the land than the leached stockyard 
manure, which might or might never be returned to it. Gentlemen, I can quite imagine 
the thoughts in your minds from these remarks—namely, “Oh! Denman feels towards 
dairying as some feel towards aie ean My remarks have not been made in a 
captious, but a kindly cautious spirit. I have tried to think out this solution. I know 
that a large quantity of natural herbage is now going to waste in this district. I know 
that the best results ever obtained by our esteemed friend Mr. Mahon with his 
travelling dairy were obtained in Mackay. Iam satisfied that dair ing will, in this 
district, help very considerably to revolutionise the sugar industry ait establish it ona 
much firmer basis, render it more profitable to all connected with it, and do more 
towards solving its most serious problem, which has so far defied the efforts of all who 
have attempted it. But, gentlemen, the only means by which this can be accomplished 
will be by the construction of light agricultural lines, which will not only tend to close 
settlement, but, as in other countries, will prove very profitable work. “At the present 
time, owing to the want of cheap and asl communication, our cane supply is confined 
to only a small portion of our available land. Dairying would be the primary industry 
of the settlers owing to the fact that it costs much less to start than canegrowing, and 
brings in a regular weekly revenue instead of having to wait eighteen to twenty-four 
months for their first returns, which means heavy interest, and in many cases an extra 25s. 
on goods obtained during the interim. These settlers would soon enter upon cane cultiva- 
tion, having an assured market for their product, but instead of, as at present, having one 
man growing 50 acres for an average return of about 14 tons per acre, we should have 
five men growing ten acres each, yielding from 25 to 30 tons per acre. This would, in 
all gelatine lead to a system of co-operative cane cutting. Many who now hold their 
farms for canegrowing only, would then be released from those conditions and allowed 
to combine dairying with their cane cultivation. In these times of fierce and unfair 
competition, mills must be worked to their fullest capacity if the present price of cane, 
which permits of no reduction, is to be maintained. ‘In America and Canada the 
settlers go to the railroad, and towns and villages quickly spring into existence. In 
Queensland, an inverted system obtains, the railw ay goes to the settlers, but as a 
general rule not until half of the original ones have had to abandon their holdings for 
want of it. ‘The chief requirements, not only of the farmers, but of the colony 
generally, are labour, capital, and railway communication. Separately each is useless : 
united they are a sure avenue to success. Tregret to say that some people in this colon: 
have made the pute of barriers between these three their chief aim in life. 
appeal to every man and woman in Queensland in their own interests, and in that of 
their native or adopted country, to do all in their power to bid this state of things cease, 
for in the future, as in the past, the only things which ean possibly accrue from it with 
anything like regularity, so long as the people tolerate such a state of things, are 
distress and disappointment, and Queensland must yearn in vain for either close 
settlement, commercial prosperity, or national expansion. 
On the conclusion of Mr. Denman’s paper, which was warmly applauded 
by delegates, it was referred to the Resolutions Committee, as owing to its com- 
prehensive nature it was considered it would be impossible to discuss it 
immediately with justice; and the discussion on it, as well as on the following 
papers of Mr. Pott and Captain Henry, was postponed to Thursday morning. 
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