1 Avea., 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 77 
Government help, but I hope it will not be always so. We have had applica- 
tions to the Government at this Conference for grass roots, for the clearing of 
our land, for bulls, and even for roosters. Let us, as individuals, try and rise 
above this sort of thing, and show some of the British pluck we possess, and 
that we do not ask for what we can get ourselves. 
The Hon. D. H. Danrymere: If time permitted I should like to express 
the pleasure which the reading of Mr. Daniel’s papers afforded me. Mr. 
Daniel has shown us that if we do not provide against the risks of nature we 
must suffer. The moral of the papers is, I take it, that if we act on the 
recommendations they contain we shall undoubtedly escape being taught by a 
very much more painful process the lessons inculcated. 
Mr. G. Movtpay (Allora) : The advice given by Mr. Benson is sound and 
good. There is no difficulty in producing fruit on the Downs, but there is in 
keeping it when it is produced, When the Diseases in Plants Act is to be put 
in force, I hope that particular part in the regulations dealing with the com- 
pulsory collection and destruction of fly-infested fruit will be first eliminated. 
I know that isa course of proceeding that Mr. Benson lays great stress on, 
and Mr. Benson is an able officer from whom I have got many a good hint. 
The enforcement of the particular clause, however, would entail a lot of 
expense and labour which I doubt would be justified either financially or by 
any, material diminution of the fruit-fly pest. 
Mr. J. G. Parernorre (Toowoomba): As a small fruitgrower, I rise to 
congratulate Mr. Benson on a really practical paper. As one who travels about 
the country a bit, I can endorse his remarks that there are only certain portions 
of the Downs suitable for certain kinds of fruit trees. 
The next contribution was an essay by Mr. Danyren Jones, of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, on— i 
METHODS OF IRRIGATION OF FRUIT TREES IN ORCHARDS 
—— IN VICTORIA. 
(By DanteL Jones, Department of Agriculture. | 
In the few observations I am about to make regarding the very important question 
of irrigation in its relation to fruit cultivation, I wish to make it plain that the facts 
I propose to present to this Conference are the results of personal investigation into 
the question of fruitgrowing as carried on in various places in Victoria, where I have 
on several occasions had the good fortune to observe the utility and general success 
attending the systems of orchard irrigation in vogue in the localities I visited. The 
story of irrigation enterprise in Victoria, read in the light of the past fifteen years’ 
experience, is one that to us Queenslanders will carry very important and. instructive 
lessons. As an interested person in these questions, I can well recall the influence 
exercised by the Honourable Alfred Deakin, Bishop Moorehouse, Mr. McColl, and 
many other apostles of the water faith. It is quite sufficient for me to rapidly pass by 
the various postulates laid down by those gentlemen in some of their too fervid 
moments. Nevertheless, these men were men of staunch ideals, and, utting 
aside for the moment the excessive glamour they cast over the question, all who 
know Victoria to-day must admit that, although all their ideals did not prove as 
practical as they conceived them to be, nevertheless that State is to-day the better 
for the efforts put forth by those gentlemen, and this is amply illustrated by the 
labours of individual orchardists working on their own initiative or in connection with 
Government systems. ‘These men have Fea shown that irrigation scientifically 
applied to fruit cultivation means the difference between a precarious livelihood when 
depending on natural conditions for rainfall, as against that of the more certain and in 
every sense more profitable position of affairs resulting from the adoption of a 
practical method of irrigation. Probably no more dismal chapter exists in the history 
of irrigation than thar which confronts us in the numerous and costly mistakes 
committed in Victoria in connection with irrigation schemes, both in proprietary and 
in State water trusts. Now, however, we in Queensland can learn and profit well by 
their mistakes, The vast sums of money ill-advisedly spent are to us special 
warnings not to do likewise, In this sense then we can congratulate ourselves in 
haying practical experience, costly to others, at a very cheap rate to guide ourselves 
