42 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Juny, 1902. 
ments had been established. I asked one young fellow how it would work, 
His reply was that he and a number of the old settlers who had been in the 
district for years would have to hump their blueys and clear out, as there was 
not enough work in the district for both them and the new men that the 
Government had placed in their midst. This scheme of Mr. Mau’s has 
apparently the object of assisting in the providing of a regular supply of 
reliable labour for work in the canefields and sugar-houses. Itis, however, the 
planters who would benefit from such labour, and, as many of them own large 
estates in the sugar districts, many will probably think that they should be first 
approached with the object of getting them to cut up portions of their lands 
into 5-acre blocks. This system is carried out in the old land, where the 
opulation is different in its condition and in its aspirations to what we have 
fore Men here will not settle down for life on 5-acre blocks of land, and in 
any event there are plenty of private landowners who can cut up land for the 
purpose of providing themselves with a supply of labour. 
FIFTH SESSION. 
Wepnespay, llru June, 1902, 9:30 a.m. 
Mr. D. Smiru, of Roma, then submitted the following suggestions relative 
to the clearing of land by the Government to encourage settlement— 
EXPERIMENTAL FARM BY THE GOVERNMENT ON A LARGE 
SCALE. 
[By Danrex Smitru, Yingerbay.] 
GENTLEMEN,—We wish to bring forward and introduce to the people of this 
State a scheme which we consider is the most important, desirable, and profitable 
investment that could be made for the benefit of the whole country in general, and 
which would form a stronghold against these disastrous droughts, advance the 
knowledge of agriculture, encourage settlement, and prove a great stand-by for the 
district. That is an experimental farm by the Government on a large scale. he 
idea is this— 
1. Choose 20,000 acres of land containing all the different varieties of soil. 
2. Cultivate 10,000 acres or whatever quantity is required, and grow what. kind 
of crops the soil will produce for future requirements. 
3. Store up every kind of produce for future requirements. 
4. Breed cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, and poultry from the very best herds and 
stock procurable. 
5. The people then would have a good valuable stock for the district instead of 
continually breeding from inferior Tae 
6. To stand these disastrous droughts, we must look to the growing of crops and 
the laying-up of a large supply of food for man and beast. - 
7. The present system of depending too much on next year’s crops is defective, as 
we leave ourselves open to a fearful calamity if it happens to keep dry and no crops 
are harvested for two seasons. 
GOVERNMENT CLEARING Lanp to Encourage SETTLEMENT. 
Owing to the extreme depression now existing in the land from these bad times, 
we must adopt some method of creating more circulation of capital and closer settle- 
ment of the people on the land. We wish to suggest what we consider would prove a 
productive outlay— 
1. Choose spots suitable for agriculture. 
2. The Government to have the land cleared, and then to throw it open for 
selections on easy terms. 
_ 3. The benefits, we consider, are as follow— 
4, Giving employment to people. 
5. Encouragement to village settlement. 
6. Distributing capital on a productive outlay. 
, 7. Assisting and inducing people to go on the land by giving them the means to 
0 so. 
