76 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Avea., 1902. 
famine of 1866 compelled the British Government to give special attention to 
this matter. The old irrigation works were repaired at a cost of £3,000,000, 
and this expenditure paid the Government an interest of 17 per cent. Since 
then, up to 1888, it has spent £31,000,000. The water rate is 12s. an acre, 
and it pays 43 per cent. interest to the Government. Some of these irrigation 
works in India are of enormous size. One, which impounds an area of 35 
square miles, has an embankment 12 miles long, and is bringing in a return of 
£11,400 a year. I believe there are 30,000 miles of canals in India, and nearly 
300 separate masonry works. Irrigation is a matter which should be attended 
to by the Government in Queensland, for there are many places in the colony 
where irrigation works could be established, and which works would increase 
enormously the value of the country. 
Mr. VY. C. Repwoop (Toowoomba) : At Christmas you could not sell feed 
on the Downs, but now the want of it is being very keenly felt, and our 
farmers will find that they will have to conserve food as well as water for times 
of drought as do farmers in Europe, America, or other portions of Australia. 
In the older countries you will sometimes see stacks of straw or hay carried 
over for three years, but here, although some make provision for the lean years, 
still more seem to expect Divine Providence to do everything for them. 
Mr. W. Deacon (Allora): I should like to correct Mr. Daniel in one 
statement. He says that individuals sold their straw at 5s., and now have to 
buy it back at £5. That straw was sold at 5s. in the stack, and if they did 
buy it back at £5 it would be as chaff in bags—a very different thing. But 1 
do not know that straw is sold at £5. I have straw to sell, and only expect to 
get 25s. for it. We are told the farmer should not sell, but should store, but 
we are always told that when the drought is upon us. ‘This lecturing farmers 
on what they should save is all very well, but the farmer is a grower and not a 
speculator. Asa rule the most successful farmers are those who dispose of 
dict produce on the first suitable opportunity, and a crop haying been grown 
the sooner the farmer gets it to market the better for himself. I know, too, 
that is the opinion Professor Shelton used to express. It must be remembered 
that stuff loses weight. I cut hay at Christmas and put it into a good stack, 
but that hay in four months has lost 25 per cent. in weight, the dry weather 
having soaked every bit of moisture out of the stack. 1 should just like to 
express the opinion that we should go cautiously in this irrigation question. 
Trrigation for rice and cane is no doubt essential, but it is doubtful whether it 
will pay for general crops. It always seems to be taken as an axiom that 
irrigation will pay, and the methods of it are so well known that you can go in 
for it, if you have the money, right away. I notice, however, that last year 
the United States Government voted 32,000 dollars for experiments in 
irrigation to be carried out by the chief experiment stations. In consequence 
of that vote they are now conducting experiments in fifteen ditferent States, 
and if in America they think it is necessary to proceed thus cautiously I think 
we can very well act in a similar fashion. 
Mr. J. J. Danren (Pittsworth) : Mr. Deacon has somewhat misunderstood 
the meaning of my paper. In the matter of the price of straw I may have said 
£5, and perhaps I should have said £3. There are farmers where I am living 
who sold their straw at 5s., and to-day are paying £3 10s. for straw, in chaff. 
I know one firm who bought hundreds of tons of straw at 5s., and are now sell- 
ing it at £3 to £4 per ton. 
Mr. Deacon: As chaff, and in bags. 
Mr. Dante: I do not recommend that a man should keep all his crop, but 
I think he should keep enough stuff for his own stock’s requirements over a 
possible dry spell. My great object in writing these letters was not to pro- 
pound a water scheme, but to see if I could stir up individuals to individual effort. 
However, at these Conferences I have noticed that the tendency of the resolu- 
tions and recommendations seem to be in the direction of applications for 
