36 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Juny, 1902. 
necessity years ago of the information that Mr. Deacon speaks of, but 
unfortunately the essential co-operation of the clerks of the divisional boards 
was denied us. We have also applied to the owners of the threshing plants, as 
Mr. Lamb can testify, for information relative to the probable yield of wheat ; 
but they could not supply particulars until they had finished their threshing. 
When they had finished, I admit, they were quite willing to supply informa- 
tion, but then it would be too late to be of much service. If we had applied 
to the Home Secretary’s Department we would have been told that the police 
collected these figures. So they do, but the information is not available until 
twelve months after it is wanted. The Department is fully seized of the 
importance of what Mr. Deacon is driving at, and it had gone so far as to have 
the country mapped out into districts. It communicated with a number of 
leading men in each district to see if they would act as correspondents, but the 
adoption of such a system as that would probably involve expense; and, as the 
Department in these times has not too much spare money, we have been unable 
to do anything definite so far in that direction. 
Mr. C. P. Mau (Mackay): Co-operation is a subject that I am very much 
in favour of, and I can assure you that with it the farmers of this State can 
accomplish much. In the Pioneer River district the Association calls for 
tenders every couple of months for the supply of certain articles for the use of 
the members, and those members thereby secure a large proportion of their 
goods at a big percentage under what they would otherwise have to pay for 
them. ; 
Mr. Tuomas Hamnyn (Crow’s Nest): I am a member of a divisional 
board, and remember the correspondence to which Mr. McLean refers. We 
naturally thought then, however, that it was an endeavour to relieve the 
police of work they had been doing all along. If the boards had taken on 
the work, in many cases they would probably have had to employ a man to 
attend to it. I would suggest to the Department that it send out circulars 
to individuals and obtain the information that way. 
Mr. W. Miscampie (Roma): I certainly think that farmers and other 
producers very often lose a great amount of money through ignorance as to 
the value and probable future value of their crops. We are trying to grow 
wheat up our way. Everybody was out of his calculations with respect to the 
total quantity of wheat grown in Australia during the past season, and most of 
the people up our way thought they were doing well, when they compared it 
with the rates in other places, when they got 2s. 5d. per bushel for their wheat. 
Instead of the wheat crop turning out to be a 48,000,000 bushel one, however, 
it was flashed out about the middle of March that shippers had shipped away 
11,000,000 bushels of wheat, reckoning on the not realised 48,000,000 bushels. 
‘The result has been that wheat has gone up to 4s. 4d., but innumerable farmers 
have in no way participated in that improvement in price. This has been 
a great loss to a number of growers, and anything that can be done to help the 
Department in gathering information as to probable yields should be cheerfully 
rendered, as the farmers themselves are the ones who will most benetit by 
having the knowledge in question published. 
Mr. W. Deacon (Allora): Every time the Department has sent to me for 
information of this nature I have always endeavoured to supply it, and I 
remember that the last time I furnished it with an estimate time afterwards 
proved to be very nearly correct. 
Mr. J. E. Dean, of Woodlands, Maryborough, then read the following 
paper on— 
IMMIGRATION. 
[By J. Epgar Dean, Woodlands, Maryborough. | 
It is not my intention to occupy the time of this Conference with an 
unnecessary description of the system under which immigration was conducted 
in the past. I will come to the point by saying that to a large extent it failed’ 
in its object—z.e., to provide a suitable class of labour for agricultural pursuits. 
a a 
