464, QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 June, 1902. 
used up in the southern mills of the United States last year. South Sea 
Island cotton which was grown in Florida last year was sold locally at 2s. 1d. 
per lb. The price of uplands cotton in America fluctuates in the most 
extraordinary manner. Last year it ran from 43d. per lb., clean lint, to 934., 
following which came a drop to 6d. The present price of uplands cotton clean is 
92d. per lb. The cost of producing 1 acre of cotton, putting the crop at the very 
low average of 1,000 lb. seed cotton, is £3 1s. 8d. Supposing a man to gin 
his own cotton, the cost of production from the first ploughing of the land to: 
the marketing of the cotton, say in Japan, would amount to over £8 for one 
bale of 400 1b. Freight to Japan from Brisbane is £2 16s. 6d. per ton; the 
cost of landing the same cotton in England is £7 11s. approximately. These 
remarks apply to uplands cotton. 
Prorirs of Corron-Ggrowine. 
The value of uplands cotton in the British market and in the Japanese 
market is about 4d. per lb., consequently the value of a 400-lb. bale of cotton is 
£6 138s. 4d. It would, therefore, appear that there was no profit to be gained 
by the export of cotton to either country, but, whereas formerly the seed was 
absolutely valueless, now undecorticated seed is worth from £4 10s. to £6 per 
ton, whilst decorticated seed is worth from £7 to £8 per ton. The hulls and 
remaining lint, of which a ton of seed will give 1,000 lb., are worth as paper 
material from £4 to £8, and a new process has been discovered of extracting 
the oil, by which farmers will receive about 30s. a ton more for the seed. The 
refined oil sells at 3s. 4d. per quart in sealed cans. Furthermore, the cotton 
seed being crushed produces 87 gallons of oil per ton, and cotton-seed oil is worth 
from £23 to £24 per ton. Again, after the extraction of the oil we have the 
oil-cake for cattle food. Oil-cake is worth £7 per ton. It will thus be apparent 
that the by-products of cotton are worth far more than the actual cotton lint 
itself. Uplands cotton is an annual which may be pruned, but it is not worth. 
while to do so. Sea-Island cotton, on the contrary, pays for pruning ; when 
not pruned, it runs to wood. When pruned, it is somewhat similar to coffee, and: 
produces large crops which often amount to 9 lb. weight of cotton in seed. This 
means 3 lb. of lint. Sea-Island cotton at the present moment is sold in the 
Southern States of America, where it thrives to perfection, at 2s. 1d. per lb. 
It is possible a market for Australian-grown cotton could be found in 
Japan, which is much closer to us than England; the price paid there is 53d. per 
Ib. for clean uplands cotton. The cotton-mills in the Southern States of 
America and the Gulf work “up far more bales of cotton than the United 
Kingdom. Seven million bales, which formerly went to Manchester, are now 
used up in the States cotton-mills. ; 
_, .,. We have no experience in the Cairns district of the yield of uplands or 
white seed cotton, all the cotton hitherto grown up here being clean black-seed 
Sea Island, but in the South a yield of from 1 to 13 1b. of clean cotton per 
bush is considered a very fair crop. There the cotton is’ planted in rows 
6 feet by 5 feet (the former being the distance between the rows), giving 1,200 
bushes per acre. This means, at 1 lb. per tree, 1,200 lb. of clean lint. Cal- 
culating the value of this lint at 5d. per Ib., you have £25, from which must be 
deducted the cost of cultivation and picking, which amounts to £3 18s. Those 
who wish to make the calculation for themselves can do so by noting that the cost 
of picking cotton is 3d. per lb. and the cost of ginning is 3d. per lb. Each 
bale costs 2s. 6d. for cartage, freight, insurance, and commission. ‘One of the 
most important factors in shipping cotton is dumping. ‘Two 400-lb. bales are 
dumped into one, and the Brisbane shipping agents as a rule charge nothin 
for dumping. To sum up the whole matter, the net profit on 1 acre o 
cotton, at the very low average of 1,000 lb. of seed cotton or 400 lb- of lint, is 
over £5 per acre. PS didy be ier % 
Ota wo Berrer THAN OrHeR Crops, 2 
Now compare this with the profits on: rice, sugar, wheat, and maize, 
Without going into figures it can be shown that the net: profit derived from 
