1 Juny, 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 19 
of men. The Agricultural Department is doing wonderfully good work ; and if 
the farmers choose to avail themselves of the seeds and information distributed 
by the Department, they can get them with very little trouble. Ax for the question 
of small shows, my experience is that, generally, nearly every exhibitor gets a 
prize, and consequently any honour that may attach to winning one is more or 
less, reduced toa minimum. Tn fact, if every farmer does not get an award, 
the disappointed ones will go and start a show of their own the following year. 
Mr. W. P. Cooxsrry (Brisbane): My experience of horticultural societies 
is that the attendance at meetings is generally very limited. Members, as a 
rule, do not care about turning out at night. This-is not altogether the fault of 
the members, but owing to the dates on which the meetings are held. Jf more 
favourable dates were chosen for meetings, more members would probably turn 
up. I think a chamber of agriculture isnecessary. We have a live Department, 
but it does not see everything thatis required. A chamber is wanted altogether 
separate from the Department, and in no wise governed by it. It should be 
rather of the nature of an advisory body to the Department. If a chamber had 
been in existence during the past two years, the fruit-growing industry would 
probably not have suffered in the way that it has. ! would suggest that the 
delegates to this Conference discuss the matter of forming a chamber, for I 
certainly think that one is needed. 
Mr. Percy Bropres (Tiaro): It appears to me the meeting has not 
properly grasped Mr. Deacon’s paper. He outlines a trust, which the people 
of Queensland should hold as a trust. We have trusts in America which are 
simply organisations, and these not merely enrich themselves, but those beneath 
them. Not only that, but by our trust, the farmers of the South would become 
more in sympathy with those of the North. Why should not the grower of 
corn have sympathy with the grower of cane? Why should not the grower of 
the Downs be in sympathy with the Mackay sugar planter? Let us, if we can, 
join together and fight our battle in that trust for the rural interests of 
Queensland ; not only ourselves, but the people who make their living out of 
us. I certainly think that what Mr. Deacon has suggested—namely, a chamber 
of agriculture—is one of the finest things we could possibly adopt. It would 
not only be a benefit to ourselves, but a benefit to Queensland. ‘The Southern 
people would then be able to drop into the views of the Northern. The 
Government frequently want advice relative to the different conditions of ” 
different districts; and an independent chamber of agriculture would be of the 
greatest service in that way. The lands of the North, for instance, are 
frequently different in their conditions from those of the South, with the 
result that the same land laws are hardly applicable to both. 
Mr. F. W. Perk (Loganholme): As the organiser of one of the most 
successful associations of the State—namely, the Logan Farming and Industrial 
Association—I may say that we claim to have done a little amount of good. 
There is one thing we brought forward yery prominently lately, and that was 
rice. Rice had been tried in the Logan previous to the formation of our 
association, but unfortunately the business had been allowed to lapse for the 
want of the matter being properly taken up and grown by a recognised body 
of farmers. Each man had been paddling his own canoe, had been fossicking 
along by purchasing seed here, there, and everywhere. He had, in some instances, 
got hold of the wrong sample of seed, and the rice industry, which had been started 
by our friend of the Agricultural Journal, Major A. J. Boyd, some twenty-three 
years ago, had fallen into decay, although the Logan district is really ‘one of 
the best situated in the State for the growth of rice. In the Logan there are 
a large number of swamps, which have been to a certain extent drained, however, 
and this land contains the constituents of what the rice requires. The land 
had, at one time, evidently been overflown by the sea, leaving a deposit of lime, 
sea shells, &¢., on which, together with certain saline properties, the rice seems 
to find that nourishment on which it thrives. The farmers in the district did, 
as a matter of fact, grow a quantity of rice for feeding to horses, but our 
