240 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL souRNAL. [1 Apri, 1902. 
over the field, and that for 4 acres 86,400 cubic feet are run over the land in 
twenty-four hours.” If it is intended to convey the idea that a layer of water 
4 inches deep over 4 acres contains 86,400 cubic feet, surely it is misleading. 
Is it not nearer 58,080 cubic feet? which, at 6232 gallons per cubic foot, 
would give about 361,954 gallons; this, repeated twelve times, 4,343,448 
gallons. The whole calculation, as it appears in the Journal, is spoilt by- 
omitting two figures. One other point: In the Agricultural Journal for 
February, 1901, the number of gallons contained in 1 inch of water over an 
acre was said to be 27,154. In January, this year, the number of gallons is 
put down at 22,617; and, although it was explained in a subsequent number 
that the measure used in the February, 1901, calculation was Hawaiian, many 
did not notice it, and are no doubt getting confused. Might I suggest that, in 
treating this subject (irrigation)—an ever-increasing important one—one 
measure, and one only, be used in all calculations in the Agricultural Journal. 
MAIZE-PLANTING EXTRAORDINARY. 
Station, Farm, and Garden says that the following curious story is told of 
a feat in maize-planting :—A farmer sent a man out with the planter to planta 
big field of maize last spring. The farmer supposed that the man knew how to 
operate the machine, and he did in a way. About the time he had the field 
planted the farmer went out to see it, and discovered that the man had set the 
machine so that all the seed was planted from 4 to 5 inches deep. ‘Then the 
farmer lifted up his voice and apostrophised this farm hand in a most eloquent 
agricultural way. A third of the maize never showed above ground, and what 
did had a hard pull to get through. The crop was cared for, however, and then 
eame the drought, and the maize fields with a good stand and properly planted 
little by little gave up the ghost, and became an acreage of seared fodder, while 
the hired man’s field, with its thin stand and deep-rooted maize, showed up 
green and luxuriant, and will make a crop of 40 bushels per acre. 
[There is nothing so very extraordinary about this. In the olden days of 
serub farming in Queensland, when maize was planted in holes made with a 
hoe, we haye seen whole acres planted as deep as the hoe would go, and splendid 
crops resulted. Certainly the soil was a mass of decayed vegetable matter. 
Last month we read in one of the Northern papers that a farmer sowed his 
wheat at a depth of 4 inches and got a 40-bushel per acre crop. ‘There are no 
rules without exceptions evidently. About a month ago we buried some cotton 
seed quite 6 inches under ground. ‘To-day it is growing vigorously, ready to 
be turned under.—Ed. Q.A.J.] 
A BLOCK OF GRAIN. 
Whilstit is doubtless very annoying to graziers, farmers, merchants, and others 
who send quantities of their produce by rail to the seaport towns of this State, when 
they find that there are not sufficient railway trucks to be obtained on demand, 
yet they really have very little to complain of in comparison with their cousins in 
Manitoba. There was a block of grain there last month, and, in all the North- 
western Territories of the Canadian Dominion, all the railway storage elevators 
were filled, and also the grain-buyers’ elevators, and this, together with a shortage 
' of cars, caused a serious condition of affairs. The farmers were storing wheat 
at every available spot, and were piling it about the stations. Not half the crop 
had been marketed. How would our farmers like to be compelled to store their 
wheat at the small wayside railway station with not even a tarpaulin over the 
bags? In California thousands of bags of wheat are left out in the open fields 
—— a 
