18 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Jan., 1902. 
MANURING. 
There are nearly 500,000 acres of land under cultivation in Queensland. 
Of this area there were, in 1900-1901, 108,000 acres in round numbers under 
sugar-cane ; 85,000 acres under wheat and other cereals ; 128,000 acres under 
maize; 14,500 acres under potatoes (English and sweet); 43,000 acres were 
mown for hay ; 41,000 for green fodder; 21,000 acres under vines, bananas, 
pineapples, citrus and other fruits. Here we have a total of 440,500 acres ; 
the balance, or 59,500 acres, is devoted to coffee, tobacco, arrowroot, and pump- 
kins. The area under pumpkins is given in the Registrar-General’s figures for 
1901 as 14,232 acres, but, although maize and pumpkins are shown separately, 
it must be remembered that pumpkins are rarely sown as a separate field crop. 
They are sown usually at the same time and on the same ground as maize, so 
that actually the area retained under pumpkins has already been included in 
the area under maize. 
What have these statisties got to do with manuring? it may be asked. 
They have a very great deal to do with the subject. Articles are constantly 
appearing in all rural journals, instructing farmers how and when to manure 
their land, and what manures to use. How many farmers in this fertile. 
Queensland have any need to manure their land ? 
Take the wheat farmers. The wheat lands are, as a whole, already 
too rich in natural humus, phosphates, nitrates, &c., to produce heavy 
grain crops. So rich, indeed, are the newest of these soils on the Darling 
Downs that wheat is not grown until a succession of maize and other crops 
have been produced on them. Of the 85,000 acres under wheat, it is safe to 
say that not 1,000 acres are ever manured. The same may be said of the 
maize, hay, and green fodder areas. Much of the Jand under fruit and vines 
rarely has any fertiliser applied to it, but, allowing that fruit trees and vines 
do receive some attention in this way, we should then only have 21,000 acres 
more or less fertilised ; 59,000 acres of coffee, tobacco, &c., may be left out of 
the list of manured lands. There remain the 128,000 acres of sugar lands. 
Large areas of these lands are practically virgin soil, which are sufficiently 
fertile to produce good crops of cane. We may set it down that only half the 
sugar lands are manured, and then usually all that is done is to plough in a 
green crop of cow peas. So that out of 500,000 acres there are less than 
100,000 which require or receive the aid of manure of any kind. This speaks. 
volumes for the marvellous fertility of the Queensland soil. Is it any wonder: 
that the agricultural fame of the State should attract farmers not only from all 
parts of Australia, but from Great Britain, Germany, and Russia ? 
The question of manure, then, has and for a long time will have little 
significance for the farmer from the Tweed to Cairns on the coast, and for 
those on the grand fertile tablelands beyond the Main Range from Stanthorpe 
to Barcaldine. They are there generally relieved of the great expense and 
labour attendant on the production, carrying out, and spreading of stable 
manure, or of purchasing artificial fertilisers. 
In connection with green manuring, a few words may not be out of place. 
What fertilising property do legumes possess ? They collect nitrogen from the 
air, store it away, and, when they are turned under, they supply a certain 
amount of humus and nitrogen to the soil. They do not, however, collect or 
supply any phosphoric acid or potash beyond the small quantity they may have 
taken from the soil. The Journal of the Jamaica Agricultural Society writes 
on this subject inter alia:— 
There is no potash in the air in the form of gas, nor any phosphoric 
acid, but on stiff soils the vigorous roots of the legumes may seek out 
and unlock to some degree the stores of potash below, generally unayail- 
able to surface-rooting crops, and place it in an assimilable form at the 
disposal of non-leguminous crops to follow. The nitrogen which legumes 
conyert into plant food exists in the air, in inert forms—that is, in such form 
that it is useless as plant food. ‘The pea plants, through the aid of certain 
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