1 Jony, 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 99 
poor and uncomfortable description. ‘The tenant farmer is simply a sojourner, and. it 
wottld scarcely be wise on his part to plant fruit trees which would just be coming 
into bearing when his tenancy expired, neither can he make his home as attractive to 
wife and children as he would wish. This state of things disheartens the husband, 
disgusts the wife, and drives the children to prefer the most precarious employment to 
agricultural pursuits, and it has an even yet more far-reaching effect on the children of 
well-to-do and prosperous farmers, who are very apt to form their opinions of agriculture 
as a calling from what they see of their less fortunate neighbours than from their own 
surroundings. ‘ 
Doubtless a commission will be appointed to inquire into the sugar industry, and itis 
the cane farmers’ bounden duty to use every effort to obtain direct representation thereon. 
Tt will be said that agriculturists can no more be made prosperous than people 
can be made good by Act of Parliament. This, doubtless, is true as regards indi- 
viduals, but not of communities. Is it the moral or the penal laws which impel society 
to observe the Sixth, Seventh, Highth, Ninth, and Tenth Commandments? The 
Government which does not legislate favourably forthe people who are on the land, 
and this is especially true of large and sparsely peopled countries, simply legislates 
them off it. Legislate the people on to the land, legislate for them favourably when 
they are on the land, educate them to go on the land, and last, but by no means least, 
try and afford the children of the people on the land a somewhat better education 
than at present. While large sums of money are spent on education for town and 
city boys. fitting them only for already congested and generally underpaid professions, 
or for that harbour of refuge, the Civil Service, country lads of fourteen years are 
being requested to leave sno eI schools. I know the difficulties there are with 
provisional schools, which offer little attraction to teachers; but it should not be 
impossible to overcome them and greatly improve their usefulness. 
Turning to the farmer himself, [ think that it must be self-evident to all of them 
that they, as employers must use every effort to make farm labour more attractive and 
less drudging to the farm hands. Let us transfer as much as possible to machinery 
and animals work now done by manual labour. It is not an uncommon recommenda- 
tion in the eyes of inventors that their separators or churns can be worked by a woman 
or young girl. Over thirty years ago, in Canada, I saw dogs and sheep doing the 
churning, horses and bulls cutting up firewood, pumping water, &c. Again, let me 
say that the farmers’ wives and daughters in North Queensland, whatever their 
osition may be, have more than enough to do in attending to domestic duties. I 
Hes worked alongside farmers’ wives and daughters in Canada binding wheat. 
Machinery now does this. The climate of Canada, however, is bracing; that of 
Queensland, especially the North, is very enervating. Climatic conditions count for 
much in labour, whether performed by women or men, and our Northern climate is a 
peculiarly trying one. 
Our conditions not only make it imperative that we shall make labour on the farm 
less abhorrent, but that we must economise it also. This can only be achieved by 
introducing up-to-date and labour-saving implements. But we must beware of false 
economy, which often wrecks farmers. It 1s not economy to plough land twice, 
instead of, as it may require, three or four times before planting, and trust to complete 
the cultivation after the crop is planted. The farmer’s motto should be ‘Thorough in 
everything.” Thorough cultivation and thorough drainage carry the farmer a long 
way on the road to success. I have often heard scientific farming and method in 
farming both highly eulogised, but if I were asked what I deem the greatest factor 
towards success in farming I should reply, ‘‘ Forethought.’’ Forethought tells me 
when I am cultivating a ase of land in the dry season that there is a period in our 
year when that land will have an abnormally large quantity of water to contend with, 
and prompts me to take measures to prevent any but the water which actually falls on 
its surface from passing over it. It also bids me remember that at another period 
of the year our rainfall is generally very light and irregular, and that I canin a great 
measure provide against this ill effect by conserving a supply of moisture to tide the 
crop over by deep and thorough cultivation. I experienced some surprise at the last 
Conference, when I urged deeper cultivation, to learn that it did not find favour with 
some who spoke on my paper. I am glad, however, that during the interim, some of 
them have changed their views. I may here say that I see that even in Spain, a 
country with a remarkably fertile soil (this may be due to the immense amount of 
British and French blood shed on it), but where, as a rule, agriculture is of a very 
-primitive kind (and I speak from personal observation, for I lived for two years in one 
of its confines). Inrecent experiments made in ploughing for wheat at various dephths 
from 4 to 13 inches the yield increased as the ploughing deepened, the 18-inch land 
giving double the return obtained from the staat ploughing. 
