1 Juty, 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 147 
To put land under pines in the way I have described will cost about £25 per acre, 
and is made up as follows :—£2 per acre for to fell the timber, £12 to stump and clear 
the land, and the other £11 would be spent in preparing your land and cost of plants 
and planting same. 
his may seem a big outlay, but, if planted in suitable land, this will soon be 
returned, as the pineapple is a heavy and sure cropper. 
I have stated that it takes about 4,500 plants per acre. The plants should 
bear their fruit at eighteen months from date of planting. With an average 
price of 2s. per dozen this would mean about £38 per acre for the first crop, and, as 
the suckers spring up round the plant, your crop is more than doubled, and your 
returns rise accordingly. : 
Our local market for pines is not too satisfactory, and, I feel sure, could be greatly 
improved, as it is often the case that, in one part of the States, pines are a glut in the 
market; in other parts they are just as scarce, and in this way you will find that on 
the same date, but in different parts, the prices vary froni 1d. to 1s. 
In conclusion, I must say the great secret of pineapple-growing is the same that 
applies to all other crops. 
Get on to suitable land for the purpose. Work it up thoroughly. Don’t let the 
weeds rob the plant ot part of its living, and give the plant something in return for all 
it gives you in the shape of a little manure, and you are bound to succeed. 
THE FRUIT INDUSTRY OF QUEENSLAND. 
Morro: QUEENSLAND TO THE Front. 
[By W. P. Cooxstry, Brisbane. ] 
Tn the whole of Australasia no State has such facilities for the production of fruit 
as Queensland. 
From Point Danger to Cape York along the whole coast-line, vast areas of rich 
agricultural land can be obtained at small cost to the orchardist, over which area the 
regular rainfall is fully sufficient to grow such fruits as can be produced thereon. 
The climatic conditions of Queensland enable the orchardist to grow such varieties 
of fruit that he has a rotation of crops the whole year round, and need. not necessarily 
depend on any one variety for a living. 
Tf Queensland is to hold her own in the Commonwealth, she must of necessity 
look to her productions, and we, as growers, must put our shoulders to the wheel and 
never look back until we have placed our industry in the forefront in Australasia. 
Our industry is practically in its infancy—been an infant too long—and is now 
begining to creep, and very soon we shall have to look to other markets than those of 
Australasia. 
For many years our Agricultural Department has neglected this great industry. 
Much might be said of the indifference they manifested by the culpable neglect in not 
taking measures to check the spread of the numerous scale diseases they and others 
imported into our State when it would have been an easy matter to do so. 
As usual, the gate is locked after the steed is stolen, and elaborate and expensive 
methods are now in vogue for the suppression of what might easily have been nipped 
in the bud. 
Having at last seen the error of their ways and been awakened to the importance of 
the fruit industry, the said awakening will be of very little use to the State unless they 
follow on the lines of progress by introducing such measures and men of ability (not 
through the influence of members of Payliament)—men only who know their business, 
whether it be drying. canning, packing, or curing; and only such as are necessary for 
the development of the various phases of the industry. It is no use mincing matters 
—if we are to go forward we must be taught by men who are competent to teach. 
The following fruits can be cultivated with profit to the grower, viz.:—Apples, 
pears, cherries, plums, peaches, nectarines, grapes (dessert and curing varieties), tomatoes, 
pineapples, bananas, custard apples, persimmons, mangoes, figs, strawberries, Cape 
gooseberries, and all kinds of citrus fruits, to say nothing of many kinds of fruit which 
are more or less unknown to the ordinary individual. On the downs and highlands of 
Southern Queensland, such fruits as apples. pears, plums, peaches, apricots, cherries, 
grapes, &¢.,are cultivated to some extent, but very few of our orchardists can be congratu- 
lated on their endeavours so far. They have mostly planted in ignorance, or on the sug- 
gestion of travelling agents for southern nurserymen, worthless and indifferent sorts of 
fruit trees, which do not pay for the land they occupy, let alone for cultivation. Some 
few, however, discovering their mistake, have either rooted them out and planted others, 
or worked payable varicties on the old stocks. 
