1 Ava., 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 227 
Government is sanguine enough to speak of 10 ewt. an acre without manure 
and a total crop worth £20,000 to £30,000. This would mean £380 to £40 
gross return per acre—rather a contrast to, say, £4 in Coorg and £4 to £5 in 
Selangor! And, moreover, Mr. Newport tells us that a good deal of the coffee 
is Liberian, though chiefly C. arabica. However, we must remember that it 
is principally garden cultivation in Queensland, and the soil and climate must 
be splendidly adapted to coffee when we are told :— 
On the whole, the condition of the estates as I found them was not 
encouraging—in some cases the weeds were over the coffee. Where the coffee 
had been kept clean, the growth and bearing were remarkable. or 
amount of crop the Buderim Mountain is noticeable, the quality being also 
specially good here. On the Daintree River one or two estates that had been 
kept assiduously free from extraneous growth showed remarkable development, 
trees of thirteen and fifteen months being topped at 4 feet, having a good 
spread of secondary growth, and spiking heavily, showing promise of a5 to 6 
ewt. crop that would ripen when the trees were not more than two and a-half 
years old. For all-round good qualities, some of the properties in the vicinity 
of Cairns, especially on the range about Kuranda, are pre-eminent. 
Of course labour is the difficulty. A. Ceylon planter with fifty, nay twenty, 
good coolies might quickly make his way to fortune; but would he be allowed. 
to import even one coolie to work on the land is a question not likely to be 
answered in the affirmative from Queensland. 
Finally, we are surprised to learn of the great progress made with Liberian 
coffee (such a complete failure as it was in Ceylon) in Java where, for 1901, 
Liberian is expected to contribute 181,000 piculs against 106,000 in 1900, and 
this out of a total coffee crop (Government, private, and Liberian) of only 
383,000 piculs as against 542,000 piculs in 1900. So that in Java also coffee 
is going back as a whole, though the Liberian kind is apparently keeping up. 
But then all that the Eastern and Austral world can produce of coffee is but 
as a very little in comparison with the great and ever-increasing coffee crops of 
Brazil, Central America, and Mexico. 
LAST SEASON’S COTTON IN THE UNITED STATES. 
As the result of articles on the cotton industry which have appeared in 
this Journal (February, 1901, p. 116, and May, p. 375), we have received 
several inquiries as to the cultivation, price of lint and seed, markets, &c. It 
is possible, we learn, that some farmers may plant an acre or two as an experi- 
ment. A bale of cotton was lately sent from New Guinea to Liverpool, and 
although it was of a poor variety, badly got up and discoloured, it sold at a 
very fair price, covering, we are informed, more than the total cost of pro- 
duction, freight, &. If this be so, then, although black labour would not be 
utilised by Southern and Central Queenslanders at least, as is done in New 
Guinea, cotton grown from the best variety of seed, free from stain and well 
got up, should stand a good show in the home market. Much of the American 
cotton is now used in local cotton-mills, much goes to Japan, so that Europe 
has to look to other countries to make up its requirements. 
Judging from what the Florida Agriculturist says of the price locally 
obtained for Florida cotton, there should certainly be little inducement to send 
it all the way to Japan and sell at 53d. per Ib. 
Manager W. G. Robinson, of the cotton department of H. F. Dutton and 
Co., the most extensive cotton merchants in this State (Florida), has furnished 
the reporter with some interesting information in the matter of acreage and 
production of the cotton crop last season, which will likely prove valuable to 
our readers. 
