1 Ave., 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 69 
Agricultural Conference. 
Ar ToowoomsBa, 91H, LOrH, 1lrH, AND 129rH JuNE, 1902. 
SEVENTH SESSLON—continued. 
Mr. J. J. Dantet, of Pittsworth, then read the following paper on— 
STORAGE OF FOOD FOR STOCK. ~ 
However much many depend on the governing bodies or their neighbours for their 
supply of water, few try to put the responsibility on others for the supply of food for 
their stock, whether that supply is green or stored. We look to Nature for the 
weather suitable to grow, then to our own judgment to use or store. Whatever may 
have been past experience in the way of*obtaining food for storage from Nature's 
own untilled pasture, with here and there a few exceptions, we have for some time 
concluded that if we need such it must be obtained through cultivated and sown 
land; hence our attention has been given to the cultivation and sowing of our land. 
To do this as efficiently and cheaply as possible, we have been importing and 
manufacturing implements, such as ploughs and cultivators, which enable us to cover 
large areas in little time, so that now, in this respect, we are well up to date. Then a 
good deal has been done and said in regard to the best kind of seed to be sown to 
give the best all-round return, and we think the lucerne plant fora drought-resisting 
and continuous cropper has come out on the top, with oats and wheat for heavy yields 
_to provide stacks for time of need. We have not neglected machinery for sowing or 
gathering in the crops; we are well to the fore with drills, broadcast seed-sowers, 
reapers and binders, mowing machines, and rakes. These have not been white 
elephants in our State, for large areas have been broken up, cultivated, and sown ; our 
fields have been white or ripe unto harvest, but those who have harvested have been 
few. With every appliance at hand for growing, gathering, and storing food, when 
we take into consideration the large areas of natural grass destroyed, the increased 
number of our stock requiring food to be stored for winter or for work, to say nothing 
of times of drought, are we in a much better position to meet such a time as we 
are now passing through than we were twenty years ago? Certain it is there 
is more suffering and loss in our stock, and much more worry, anxiety, 
and loss to ourselves. And why? Not because we have not had food, but 
because we have not stored it. A few years ago it was thought that if a 
man had 100 acres of lucerne, and grew 50 acres of wheat, there was little 
danger of his ever wanting food for his stock. These areas have been largely 
exceeded. Lucerne has grown well, wheat and oats have grown luxuriantly, yet to-day 
many are found with starving sheep, frames of cattle, and horses with PORT and 
want well defined; and many more would be in this state, but they have bought back 
the food they sold, some of it as low as 5s. per ton, at the advanced price of £5 
—for on all their broad acres you see not a stack. In days gone by, stacks of 
lucerne, wheaten hay, and straw were to be seen on almost every farm, but they have 
disappeared. Why? Men have found a cheaper and quicker way of taking off their 
crops. Sheep and big stock feed it off, and store their own. This is right enough if 
provision has been made for the time when there is none to feed off, for the stock's 
own storage only lasts a few hours. This is not wholly accounted for by the saying 
itis want of forethought, for it is there, and a farmer is often heard to say, it is 
better to have the 1s. now than the 6d. or 1s. 6d.in the future. Itis largely accounted 
for by the greed that men have to get money, to get it quickly and in the easiest way 
without having due regard for the future. “The loye of money is the root of evil”; 
it is the root of the tree that is bearing the most destructive fruit as regards our 
stock. ‘That is, that so little eee has been made to feed them. It is also 
accounted for by the state in which the labour market was found at harvesting time, also 
by the few good winters we have had, for they have thrown us off our guard. We 
have said: There will be plenty, so we will not store. In the first part of this season 
there was food enough grown on the Downs, not only to have fed the Downs stock, 
but to have kept a fair supply on our market, but it was fed when not wanted, it has 
been wasted in paddocks in heaps, burnt, and trampled under foot. Our wheat- 
growers are very little better off than our lucerne-growers. Some of them to-day 
are blaming the strippers and harvesters for this, but it is not the machines, 
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