356 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Sepr., 1901. 
SUGAR CANE AND CANE SUGAR. 
The consumption of sugar-cane is rapidly increasing, and it is a good thing 
for both producers and consumers, for it is a profitable crop and a wholesome 
food, as well as the delightful basis of every confection. The time-worn 
hypotheses of stingy parents that sugar deranges the stomach, rots the teeth, or 
any other bad effect upon the health or strength of the consumer, have been — 
utterly disproven by known facts. On the contrary, the best medical authorities 
class sugar as a wholesome and easily digested aliment, containing in the best 
possible form the best elements required to develop physical energy and to 
counteract the waste of emaciating diseases. It has long been known that 
inhaling the steam from boiling cane juice has a wonderfully palliating effect 
in pulmonary diseases, and hundreds of sugar boilers by the open kettle 
processes are firm in the belief that it will actually cure consumption. It is 
certain, however, that working in a sugar house improves the condition and 
relieves much of the suffering of consumptive patients. Cane juice sucked 
from the chewed cane or drunk by dipperfuls from a juice tank is advised in 
fevers by the best physicians in the malarious cane-growing sections, and the 
writer has both witnessed and experienced its salutary effects, under the advice 
of the venerable Dr. F. M. Law, of Bryan, Texas, when he was serving as 
voluntary soldier, chaplain and physician to Greene’s regiment, T. V. G@., in 
1863. The juice is diuretic, diaphoretic, refrigerant, nutritious, and refreshing. 
The robust health of both negroes and whites who work on sugar plantations — 
aud in sugar houses is proverbial, although the country is notoriously malarious. 
—Texas Farm and Ranch. 
A NEW GATE-FASTEN ER. 
In these columns (Farmer and Stockbreeder), from time to time, there 
have appeared gate-fasteners of many kinds, from the most primitive to the 
ingeniously scientific. In the accompanying illustration, which is self- 
explanatory, we give another, and it must be admitted that it is characterised 
by the greatest simplicity. The wooden bolt is easily attached to the gate-bars, 
(ACA : 
at Vl NAAL Ne Meee 7% Ape NO ed is i 
“oe - = 
Ty tps i, = 
pom at ra er So) + 
SoS eee 
which are cut so as to correspond with the projections on the bolt when the 
gate is shut, and all that is necessary is to cut a slot in the post to admit the 
tongue of the bolt. When closed the gate cannot become unlatched of its own 
accord, nor can it be opened by live stock. 
PROTECT THE BIRDS. 
Shall we ever arrive at the point of protecting our insectivorous birds from 
the gun of the town sportsman (?), who sallies forth on holidays and Sundays 
and shoots down every little bird that comes within range of his gun? Over 
and over again letters and articles have appeared in the public Press, pointing 
out the senseless cruelty of this bird-shooting. Farmers and orchardists know 
very well that certain birds are the best friends they have, yet men and boys 
in the country districts go out shooting in their spare time and bring home a 
bag of poor little birds quite useless either for food or ornament. 
