126 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Avea., 1899. 
however, there is a great change in agricultural methods in the colony, brought 
‘about principally, 1 may say, through the exertions of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment. Some years ago we were left to jog along as best we could for ourselves, 
‘but now, as you are aware, things are going better, and instead of importing 
everything we require, we are sending away a lot of produce, thereby improving 
the prosperity of the colony. Now wehayehad the Tobacco Expert lately at Cairns, 
with the object of inducing people to start tobacco again. When there, he 
told us he had been informed by a Brisbane tobacco manufacturer that he used 
to get good leaf from Cairns. The first thing in successful tobacco culture is 
a good, deep, well-drained soil. Red soil upland or alluyial flats are also good. 
For the Cairns district, the proper time for planting is March, so as to have the 
plants ready to put out by the wet season, and thus enable them to get a good start. 
If they thus get a hold in the ground, they can carry on without rain. The 
crop grows in the winter in the Cairns district, which is impossible in the South. 
It ripens in the winter, and when the summer comes your shed must be ready. 
‘The plant grows during May, June, and July, and after that the next process 
is the cutting of the crop and housing it in the shed. The drying is done in 
July and August when there is seareely any rain, and when the climate is all 
that could be desired for the object in view. This shows that the whole work 
of growing the leaf and preparing it for market does not occupy a very large 
part of the year, and I believe, even with only a yield of 4 or 5 ewt. 
to the acre, it would pay if a fair price were secured for the leaf. At 
1s. per Ib. such a yield would return from £20 to £25 per acre, and 
‘consequently I think, for a small farmer, tobacco is an eminently suitable crop. 
The labour for it is required in the off season, and could be performed. by the 
‘women and children. he federation of the Australian colonies would open up 
a big market for our Northern products; tobaceo of the finer quality among 
others. There is no doubt there would be a market in the other colonies for 
that leaf, and with federation I feel sure that tobacco, if grown, would be a 
paying crop, and one eminently suitable for close settlement on the soil. 
Mr. R. 8S. Nevirn (Tobacco Expert): I would have preferred, before bemg 
called on to speak at this stage of the discussion, that the gentlemen present 
had expressed their views and opinions, thus giving me some idea of what they 
want to know. In other words, it would have pleased me better to have had 
all the evidence before I presented my case. I know that in these colonies, as 
in every country where tobacco has not been a staple product, it is not clearly 
understood that there are several different varieties of tobacco which are used 
for special purposes, that these tobaccos grow under different conditions, and 
that the treatment necessary for them varies considerably. For instance, you 
may take the Texas leaf here. Texas cannot produce a cigar tobacco, but it can 
produce a very good pipe leaf, and to the extent of from 8 ewt. to three-quarters 
of aton per acre. Of course, as our Chairman said this morning, our methods are 
as yet to some extent crude, and the processes are especially so. But I think there 
ean be no sort of questinn—that is, so far as Texas and Inglewood are concerned, 
as well as the surrounding districts—that Queensland tobacco can be improved 
so as to drive out of the market foreign tobacco of the heavier pipe varieties. 
Now, there is another thing about growing tobacco, and that is, that the plant 
adapts itself to soil and climatic conditions more readily probably than any 
other crop. It is not an unfrequent thing to grow excellent tobacco at a 
certain place, and yet twenty-five miles away, with the same seed, and 
apparently on similar soil, the crop is a failure. Mr. Whitney, in his 
report to the Agricultural Department of the United States of America 
on the tobacco soils of the United States, after a very exhaustive report, winds 
up by saying that, after all, we can only determine whether or not a given district 
is suitable for tobacco by actual trial, for the reason that both the product and 
the plant are so susceptible to atmospheric and climatic conditions, that we cannot 
determine, even with the most delicate instruments, except by actually growing 
tobacco, whether or not the plant is suitable to that particular locality. Now, 
it is on this account that so many people who have been engaged in’ growing 
