1 Sepr., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 261 
The Late Exhibition as a Factor in Edueation. 
On the surface it may appear to some that the Annual Exhibition of the Queens- 
land National Association is merely an excellent opportunity afforded to those 
living away from the capital, either in the North or West or in the surrounding 
agricultural districts, to meet each other and enjoy social intercourse amidst 
pleasant and congenial surroundings. Eyen were this all, there is much to be 
said in favour of the annual gathering, for where many hundreds of rural dwellers 
are gathered together, and interchange ideas, good must inevitably result. Men, 
and also women, and even the youth carry back to their homes ideas which, but 
for such an opportunity, would never have entered their heads. 
But there is another, a higher and broader, view to be taken of the value of 
the Exhibition. 
Comprehensively, the visitor obtains a good general idea of the rural economy 
and often varied resources of the colony as a whole. This is, in itself, an 
education. It is not alone, however, sufficient that the residents should be 
enlightened as to the colony’s capabilities, but visitors from other colonies and from 
distant countries are brought face to face with our products and manufactures, 
and thus the latter are advertised all over the civilised world. 
It is ina great measure due to the various shows held in different parts 
of the colony that new industries have arisen. Large areas of land have been 
placed under crops which were previously grown in a small way in gatdens or. 
on small farms. The unceasing exertions of the Department of Agriculture 
are constantly bringing into prominence new products of the soil, which the 
farmer and horticulturist see for the first time at some show. They try them, 
' and the product is one more item added to our list of market produce for local 
consumption or for export. Consider coffee, rice, cow-pea, the new grasses ! 
Run your eye over the stock pens on a show ground, and then try and 
remember the condition of agriculture thirty years ago, when shows were few in 
number, and its position to-day. The implements alone show what a revolution 
has taken place in the methods of cultivation of the soil and harvesting the 
products thereof, in the washing and shearing of sheep, in the manufacture of 
sugar, and in a variety of other ways. 
It was a very happy inspiration which. brought district exhibits into 
prominence at Bowen Park. These amply demonstrate the capabilities of each 
district represented, from their larger productions to the humblest to be found 
in earth, air, and water. Ask an average person where coffee, rice, sugar, and 
tobacco are grown in Queensland. His mind instantly reverts to the tropical 
portions of the colony, and he will probably reply: “Oh! away up the Far 
North somewhere.” Yet, when the resources of the Southern gnd temperate 
parts of the country are placed before him, he finds to his astonishment that 
these things are produced there, as well as in the North, on a commercial scale. 
Thus the Exhibition has the effect of teaching the people, and of teaching 
strangers to the colony, something that they never knew before; and may, in 
some cases, have the wide-reaching effect of being the means of inducing the 
investment of capital in industries not previously known to be capable of 
introduction or expansion in certain localities. 
So impressed are the Californians with the importance of displaying their 
products in exhibitions, that they take endless trouble to show their raw 
products and the same classes of produce, manufactured, tinned, packed, and 
generally put up in many attractive ways. And this work has been done so 
Bréetlially that 1t is said that as a result of Californian exhibition work 50 er 
cent. has been the increase in the trade of her products during the last fifteen, 
years, all attributable to the various exhibitions held in the country. 
