HORSES AT GOWRIE, DARLING DOWNSHORSES AT GOWRIE, DARLING DOWNS
HORSES AT GOWRIE, DARLING DOWNS
SHEEP AT GOWRIE, DARLING DOWNSSHEEP AT GOWRIE, DARLING DOWNS
SHEEP AT GOWRIE, DARLING DOWNS
HORSES, WESTERN QUEENSLANDHORSES, WESTERN QUEENSLAND
HORSES, WESTERN QUEENSLAND
FAT CATTLE, BURRANDILLA, CHARLEVILLEFAT CATTLE, BURRANDILLA, CHARLEVILLE
FAT CATTLE, BURRANDILLA, CHARLEVILLE
A new Act in 1902 offered those who elected to take advantage of it a fresh lease, at the expiration of the current one, of from ten to forty-two years, according to classification; and farther resumptions were made for closer settlement. The classification, which was decided by the Land Court, was governed by the degree of remoteness from railway and the demand for land in the neighbourhood.
The low range of hills surrounding the Darling Downs encloses over 2,000,000 acres of land of a quality that invites the plough to convert it into the granary of the State. As the railway to the New South Wales border takes its rather serpentine course southwards, coasting round many of the undulations to avoid cutting through them, the traveller looks upon a land which he must recognise as capable of maintaining a large farmingpopulation. What he actually saw till quite recently was paddock after paddock of sheep on each side, then a paddock of cattle and horses, and again more sheep. It was palpable that this could not continue indefinitely. The railway built at the cost of the general taxpayers had greatly increased the value of these estates and rendered their working more profitable. The owners of these flocks and herds had done good service to the State, and deserved the most generous treatment. Successors of the original pioneers, they had bred the stock that helped to occupy the West, and had founded studs that enabled others to replenish their flocks and herds from the purest sources. It was important above all things that no legislative interference should harass men who deserved so well of Queensland, and that no step should be taken to dispossess them which could be suspected of any taint of harshness. In time, doubtless, they would themselves have parcelled out their estates for tillage, but the process would have been slow, the easy terms of payment possible to a Government borrowing money at a low rate of interest not being generally convenient to an individual, and time in the development of a young country is important. Parliament therefore took the matter in hand and decided that where possible these landholders should be bought out on a valuation made by an independent tribunal. A number of properties have been bought by the Government, cut up into farms of from 80 acres upwards, and sold to farmers on liberal terms, payment extending over twenty-five years. Mixed farming and dairying are the chief purposes to which the land has been put, and busy townships have sprung up at the railway stations where a few years ago the stationmaster, his family, and an assistant porter formed the bulk of the resident population. Breeding lambs for export is found to be a profitable branch of the pastoral business on the Downs, and the breeding of crossbreds is consequently increasing, the Lincoln or Leicester being mated with the merino. Southdown and Romney rams have also been tried, but the Lincoln cross has been generally preferred. Crossbred lambs three to four months old bring 10s. in Brisbane, the railage costing from 1s. to 1s. 3d.
So far little mention has been made of cattle. It may be generally stated that where country is suitable for sheep, or, more accurately speaking, where they can be profitably run, cattle are only depastured in very small herds. The coastal belt and the Northern Gulf region are exclusively cattle country, and in the extreme West, although sheep thrive excellently, the long carriage causes cattle to be preferred, the expense of cattle management being much below that of sheep. The product ofthese distant pastures travels on the hoof to market, the Western cattle being noted for their great weight of flesh and the distance they carry it without great waste. Most of the herds have been improved to a high degree of excellence by importation of some of the best blood in England, and high-class stud herds have been long established in the different States from which drafts of herd bulls are drawn as required at from about 10 to 15 guineas per head.
With a population of little over half a million occupying a territory of 670,500 square miles, it will be realised that the yearly cast of "fats" greatly exceeds local requirements. The Southern States take a large number. New South Wales and Victoria are the best customers, as, with a combined population of roughly five times that of Queensland, the total of their cattle is only slightly in excess of the Queensland herd. South Australia is also a regular buyer of "fats." The "stores" that go South to be fattened beyond the State are almost exclusively bullocks of three to four years. Amongst the "fats" of ripe ages is a proportion of dry cows, and a limited number of breeders and mixed cattle also find sale with Southern buyers. But these outlets would have been quite inadequate for the absorption of the Queensland annual surplus had not meat-preserving come to the rescue of the stock-owner. Before freezing works were established, boiling down was the one resource, the tallow, hides, and sheepskins giving a meagre return, whilst the valuable carcass went to the pigs. The late Sir Arthur Hodgson, a leading pastoralist, used to relate with humorous comments his experiences with a first draft of sheep from his Darling Downs station (Eton Vale), brought to Brisbane to be boiled down at the Kangaroo Point works. During the process the owner—educated at Eton, and subsequently a Minister of the Crown in Queensland—went round daily with a handcart selling the legs of mutton at sixpence apiece. Such commercial enterprise has long fallen into desuetude.
To bring the surplus meat of Australia within reach of the eager millions of Europe has not been an easy problem, but it has at length been fairly solved by freezing the carcass, though much has yet to be done in discovering the best method of distribution of so perishable an article and its proper treatment from the freezing chamber to the spit. The various works buy cattle at about 18s. to 20s. per 100 lb., the weight of bullocks averaging about 750 lb., though many mobs, notably the huge beasts from the West, go as much as 200 lb. beyond this. The works arealso buyers of fat sheep, a 50-lb. wether two or three months after shearing bringing from 9s. to 10s. In the six years 1901-6 the exports of frozen meat from Australia totalled 353,514,135 lb. of beef and 371,692,090 lb. of mutton.
An occupation the profits of which are capable of such large additions by increasing numbers is apt to foster a spirit of gambling. In a season of bountiful rainfall it is almost impossible to over-stock country, and owners too often take the risk of availing themselves to the full of Nature's prodigality. Such a policy is most dangerous. When the time of more limited rainfall comes the owner of over-stocked pastures pays a heavy toll for his improvidence, whereas he who has regulated his numbers on the assumption of fair average seasons comes scathless through the time of trial.
Dairying comes more within the department of agriculture, as crops must be grown for feed, the dairy-farmer being necessarily the occupant of a very limited area. The benefit dairying has been to the small stock-owner can hardly be exaggerated. In old days the owner of a herd of 50 to 100 head could look only for a poor living, working for wages for part of the year whilst his family looked after the herd. Now he is a rich man. The monthly cheque from the creamery for a man milking 25 cows easily reaches an average of £20. Except in the few cases where the business has been conducted in a large way by capitalists, it is mostly an enterprise for small men. The work is unremitting, the herd having to be milked twice a day, but the rewards are sure and ample. Butter and cheese factories have sprung up like mushrooms in the last few years, there being now 79 in the State. The yield of butter for 1907 totalled 22,789,158 lb. As returns depend on the amount of butter-fat produced, owners have converted the ordinary breeds of cattle to good dairy herds by plentiful introductions of the true milking strains—Jersey, Alderney, Ayrshire, Holstein, and milking Shorthorn.
Many will probably wonder how cattle grazed over an area of many hundred square miles of country, which in the outside districts is probably unfenced, can be mustered or even kept on the run. Cattle are docilely subservient to custom, and once broken into "camps" will voluntarily seek repose in these shelters. On a well-managed station the crack of a whip will start any mob within hearing trotting for their camp, formed in a clump of shade on the creek, or, if shade is available, on some better galloping ground. Others, seeing them on the move, head towardsthe same well-known resort, there to pass the day till the shadows lengthen, only moving off in the cool of the evening to feed. If they are being mustered for branding, the cows with calves are "cut out" and brought to the stockyard to be dealt with; if for a butcher to select a draft of fats, these only are taken and delivered either on the spot or where arranged. At the general muster, which is only made every few years, as the cattle are brought in they are put through a lane in the yard, the long lock at the tip of the tail being cut short; they are thus easily distinguished on the run, so that only long-tails are brought in subsequently. A "bang-tail" muster is recorded in the station books, and, as all sales and other disposals are carefully noted and an allowance made of from 3 to 5 per cent. for deaths, it is not necessary to repeat an operation taxing horseflesh so severely at nearer intervals than three to five years. Stock-horses become very clever, and will turn and twist with a beast through the mob, the rider's whip playing on either side till the animal is run out. Large tailing yards are maintained in different parts of the run to avoid much driving, and at weaning time the weaners are herded for a month or six weeks and yarded at night, which has a quieting effect they never forget. A well-managed herd is noted for absence of rowdyism amongst its members. On a well-improved station the bullocks, heifers, and weaners will be in separate paddocks, and at a certain season the bulls are taken out of the herd and put in a paddock by themselves.
WOOL TEAMS, WYANDRA, WARREGO DISTRICTWOOL TEAMS, WYANDRA, WARREGO DISTRICT
WOOL TEAMS, WYANDRA, WARREGO DISTRICT
HAULING CEDAR, ATHERTON, NORTH QUEENSLANDHAULING CEDAR, ATHERTON, NORTH QUEENSLAND
HAULING CEDAR, ATHERTON, NORTH QUEENSLAND
Much has been written of the Australian squatter's life, both in fact and in fiction; yet the charm it exercises remains unexplained. The invigorating influence of perfect health doubtless has something to do with it, as well as the utter freedom and escape from all conventionality. Much of the bushman's time is passed in the saddle, and his dress consists of moleskin trousers, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to the elbow, and a soft shady hat. He rises at daybreak and after an early breakfast starts his day's work. As frequently he will not return to the homestead till nightfall, his lunch is in his saddle-pouch, to be enjoyed in the shade by some waterhole, where he boils the quart "billy" that dangles all day from a dee on his saddle, and makes the inevitable brew of tea. Probably he has companions and is mustering a paddock half the size of an English county; bringing the sheep to the drafting yards, it may be to draft out the fats from a mob of several thousand wethers, or perhaps to take lambs from their mothers for weaning, or to separate the sexes in a mob of mixed weaners, or to bring sheep to the shed for shearing.
Shearing is of all times the busiest. At this season men, each usually riding one horse and leading another packed with his swag, roam the country in gangs and undertake the work at contract rates, which of late have been raised from 20s. per 100 to 24s. There will be from ten to forty men on the shearing board, according to the size of the flock; and in most of the large sheds men write beforehand to bespeak a stand. Shearers earn great wages; a good man will do from 100 to 200 per day, though the latter number is of course exceptional. The introduction of shearing machines has helped to increase the shearer's daily tally. A host of other men are employed in the shed. Boys gather the fleeces which they throw on a table where they are skirted, the trimmings being divided into "locks and pieces" and "bellies," and the rolled fleece is thrown on another long table at which the wool-classer presides. He is an expert, and orders each to its respective bin, according to quality—judged by condition, length of staple, and brightness. From the various bins so graded men feed the wool-press worked by two wool-pressers, who turn out, sew, and brand the bales, of an average weight of from 3 to 4 cwt. Wagons are waiting to convey these to the railway, horse and bullock teams being almost equally used. A whip cracks like a pistol shot, and with lowered heads, the bullocks straining at the yoke, the first team draws slowly off to the incomprehensible objurgations of the driver, an incredible number of bales in three tiers piled on the wagon and securely roped.
But this bustling activity is not confined to the shed. Shorn sheep have to be returned to their paddocks, fresh mobs brought in, and the morrow's shearing housed in the shed to escape the night's dew or a chance shower. From daylight to dark during this harvest time everyone is at full stretch. The shearers have their own cook and "find" themselves, sharing together in a general mess; and as they earn good money they "do themselves" really well, denying themselves no delicacy obtainable at the station store. The whistle sounds at 6 p.m.; the last fleece has been gathered, and the men stroll to their camp to discard sodden shirts and moleskins and clean up generally before supper. The twilight is short, night chasing it swiftly from the world. The weird charm of a Queensland night in the bush penetrates with a calm satisfaction difficult to analyse. It is, let us suppose, spring or summer, and the stars appear to hang low from the deep clear indigo vault. The silence is unbroken, appealing to some indefinable emotion. No cry of beast or bird ruffles thestillness, save perhaps the faint tinkle of the bell-bird or the solemn plaint of the mopoke from some distant scrub. The men are sitting outside their hut smoking, or with tired limbs stretched on the short dry grass lying full length drawing the quiet night into their blood, its cool soft breath soothing the fatigue of the arduous day's toil. Very entertaining to a listener would be the symposium of experiences and amazing political theories of these rough good-humoured toilers, whilst in the pauses one might perhaps enjoy the fantasia executed by the musician of the party on his concertina.
Life at the homestead of many of the old-established stations differs little from that of a wealthy country home in other parts of the world. Froude in his "Oceana" draws a diverting picture of his anticipations of a bush home and its reality. He had pictured a log-hut in the wilderness, and was taken to Ercildoune, where he was amazed to find a mansion amidst splendid gardens, with conservatories, elaborate drawing-rooms, well-dressed ladies, and all the appurtenances and customs of refined life. Expecting chops, damper, and tea, the culinary triumphs of a skilfulchefwould strike an author in quest of the barbaric life with a keen reproach. Had Mr. Froude visited Queensland, he might have found something more suitable for literary treatment. Although in the older settled districts, especially on the Darling Downs, the lessees live in comfortable, well-furnished homes, many bush homesteads are still very primitive. The farther a station is from the railway the more the owner is inclined to dispense with the superfluous, till in many cases he restricts himself to the absolutely necessary. But every year sees an improvement in this respect. Hospitality is unlimited, any visitor being sure of a welcome and a night's lodging; he turns his horses into his host's paddock, and, if there are ladies of the household, his evening is enlivened with music and cultured talk.
Some of the more gigantic enterprises are conducted by squatting companies, the sheep numbering several hundred thousand and the cattle up to thirty or forty thousand. But these stupendous figures need not deter small investors. In the purchase of a station the goodwill is an asset to be paid for, and in many cases this is valued at a high figure. The selector who takes up a grazing farm pays nothing for goodwill, and gets into what is possibly a going concern from the outset with no other payment than the year's rent and the value of the existing improvements erected by the former lessee before the area was resumed from hisholding. It may happen that the country is bare of all improvements, in which case he has to fence it before he gets a lease, his neighbours being liable for half the cost of this work, which forms their common boundary. He pays a higher rent than the representative of the pioneer who created the goodwill which has descended by purchase. What more desirable opening can be found for a young man of limited capital than a farm that will carry 10,000 sheep or 1,500 cattle? He leads the healthiest life in the world, and, although it is full of hard work and includes what would be thought hardships in the home he comes from, a manly youth takes the latter with a frolic welcome, and if he works hard he also plays hard when the occasional races, cricket carnival, and festivities in the nearest township or perhaps at some neighbouring station give the occasion. But above all things it is important that he should not invest till he has gained experience. There is no difficulty in acquiring this, as stockowners are without exception glad of the assistance of a willing young fellow who accepts the knowledge acquired and perhaps a trifling salary as an equivalent for his time and work. After a couple of years of this novitiate as a "Jackeroo," he will be equipped for facing the future on his own account, which with ordinary steadfastness, energy, and forethought he may regard with confidence.
DAIRY CATTLE ON DARLING DOWNSDAIRY CATTLE ON DARLING DOWNS
DAIRY CATTLE ON DARLING DOWNS
SHEEP, JIMBOUR, DARLING DOWNSSHEEP, JIMBOUR, DARLING DOWNS
SHEEP, JIMBOUR, DARLING DOWNS
HORSES, IVANHOE STATION, WARREGOHORSES, IVANHOE STATION, WARREGO
HORSES, IVANHOE STATION, WARREGO
Tripartite Division of Queensland.—Climate.—Development of Agriculture in Queensland.—Wide Range of Products.—Early History.—Exclusion of Farmers from Richest Lands.—Origin of Mixed Farming.—Extension of Industry Westward.—Inexperience of Early Settlers.—Cotton-growing.—Chief Crops.—Dairying.—Cereal-growing.—Farming in the Tropics.—Farming on the Downs.—Farming in the West.—Irrigation.—Conservation of Water.—Timber Industry.—Land Selection.—Assistance Given by the Government.—Immigration.—Attractions of Queensland.—Defenders of Hearth and Home.
Tripartite Division of Queensland.—Climate.—Development of Agriculture in Queensland.—Wide Range of Products.—Early History.—Exclusion of Farmers from Richest Lands.—Origin of Mixed Farming.—Extension of Industry Westward.—Inexperience of Early Settlers.—Cotton-growing.—Chief Crops.—Dairying.—Cereal-growing.—Farming in the Tropics.—Farming on the Downs.—Farming in the West.—Irrigation.—Conservation of Water.—Timber Industry.—Land Selection.—Assistance Given by the Government.—Immigration.—Attractions of Queensland.—Defenders of Hearth and Home.
Situated between 10½ degrees and 29 degrees South latitude and 138 degrees and 153½ degrees East longitude, Queensland covers 670,500 square miles, or 429,120,000 acres—greater than the combined areas of France, Germany, and Austro-Hungary. Of this immense territory 53·5 per cent. lies within the Tropics, and 46·5 per cent. within the South Temperate Zone.
The State may be divided into three belts—the tropical, stretching from Cape York to the 21st parallel in the neighbourhood of Mackay; the sub-tropical, between Mackay and Gladstone, about 24 degrees South; and the temperate, from Gladstone to the 29th parallel on the border of New South Wales.
These three zones lend themselves, in turn, to a tripartite subdivision of littoral, tableland, and Western plain. Running generally in a North and South direction, and distant from the Eastern coast 30 to 100 miles, the Great Dividing Range separates the littoral from a series of tablelands having an altitude of 3,000 ft. at the two extremes, with a lesser elevation between Herberton in the North and the Darling Downs in the South. Almost imperceptibly the intermediate plateau sinks into a vast plain, which extends westward for hundreds of miles and into South Australia.
The mountain barrier between coast and tableland, though rarely exceeding 4,000 ft. in height, is still sufficiently lofty to cause the clouds of the Pacific to deposit most of their moisture on the Eastern slopes. The precipitation in this coastal belt ranges from a yearly average of 135 in. at Geraldton (at the foot of the Bellenden-Ker Mountains, in the North) to 40 in. between the Tropic of Capricorn and Brisbane, with a heavier fall wherever the mountains are in close proximity to the ocean. On the Western side of the Great Divide the rainfall decreases from 40 in.to about 30 in. at the Western limit of the tableland, and, gradually diminishing with increasing distance from the seaboard, averages only about 10 in. in the extreme South-west.
Temperature, rainfall, and soil necessary for the successful cultivation of almost every known crop are to be found in Queensland. Pastoral pursuits and mining have been the principal wealth-producers in the past; but steadily agriculture is coming to the front, and, long before the present generation has passed away, will occupy first place among the primary industries. That it has not done so already is due partly to the comparative youth of the country and its small population, and partly to its rich natural pastures and vast mineral resources. For many years the fascination of a pastoral life and the search for gold, with the hope of winning fortunes in those avocations, proved more attractive than the regular, uneventful life of the farmer, with its prospect of a competence; but the old-time glamour of grazing and mining is passing away, and the independence of the farmer is now preferred to the lot of station hand or working miner.
On the inestimable value of a rural population to the permanent well-being of a nation Mr. Roosevelt, the late President of the United States, lays stress in these pregnant words:—
"I warn my countrymen that the great recent progress made in city life is not a full measure of our civilisation; for our civilisation rests at bottom on the wholesomeness, the attractiveness, and the completeness, as well as the prosperity, of life in the country. The men and women on the farms stand for what is fundamentally best and most needed in our national life. Upon the development of country life rests ultimately our ability, by methods of farming requiring the highest intelligence, to continue to feed and clothe the hungry nations; to supply the city with fresh blood, clean bodies, and clear brains that can endure the terrific strain of modern life; we need the development of men in the open country, who will be in the future, as in the past, the stay and strength of the nation in time of war, and its guiding and controlling spirit in time of peace."
"I warn my countrymen that the great recent progress made in city life is not a full measure of our civilisation; for our civilisation rests at bottom on the wholesomeness, the attractiveness, and the completeness, as well as the prosperity, of life in the country. The men and women on the farms stand for what is fundamentally best and most needed in our national life. Upon the development of country life rests ultimately our ability, by methods of farming requiring the highest intelligence, to continue to feed and clothe the hungry nations; to supply the city with fresh blood, clean bodies, and clear brains that can endure the terrific strain of modern life; we need the development of men in the open country, who will be in the future, as in the past, the stay and strength of the nation in time of war, and its guiding and controlling spirit in time of peace."
Too large a proportion of the people of Australia is already congregated in the capital cities on the seaboard, and this centripetal tendency constitutes one of the problems most difficult of solution in our young communities, as it is proving in the older countries of the world. Here, however, we are not confronted with the obstacle of high-priced land, and no effort is being spared to turn the tide of settlement to the true source of national virility and prosperity—the land.
The suitability of the State for agriculture is amply demonstrated by the condition of those engaged in that industry, for there is noconsiderable class in the community so prosperous. Comfortable homes, well-stocked farms, overflowing barns, and other evidence of labour richly rewarded, bear witness to this fact. The abundance of a series of fat years more than compensates for the loss of crops and stock in occasional years of drought, and these losses it is possible to minimise by devoting attention to afforestation, the conservation of water, irrigation, and the storage of fodder.
Diversity of products is to be expected in a country stretching through 18½ degrees of latitude, possessing an infinite variety of soils, and divided into a hot and humid coastal belt, an elevated tableland with cool climate and moderate rainfall, and a huge plain with light rainfall and dry, invigorating atmosphere. There is probably no country in the world with so wide an agricultural range. To mention crops which can be, and are being, grown with gratifying results would be to set forth in detail nearly every crop of economic value found in the torrid or the temperate zone. Wherever Nature is so generous with her gifts there must be accompanying drawbacks in the shape of vegetable and insect pests, but, by the application of intelligence and industry, the farmers of Queensland are able to combat these petty foes.
Some of the principal objects of culture have a remarkably extensive distribution. Citrus fruits, fodder crops and artificial grasses, pumpkins and melons, flourish in every part of the State. Maize is very prolific throughout the littoral and on the tableland. Sugar-cane and tropical fruits grow luxuriantly on all the coastal lands. Most of the fruits of the British Isles and Continental Europe are at home everywhere except on the coast north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and reach perfection on the elevated lands of the Darling Downs. Cereals and root crops are produced in the Southern and Central West districts equal in quality and yield to the crops in the Southern States and oversea countries.
"Agriculture," says Professor Robert Wallace, of Edinburgh University, "is one of the oldest of human arts, dating from long before the dawn of history. The savage who lives on the roots and fruits he finds ready to his hand stands lower in the scale than the huntsman living by the chase. The herdsman leading a nomadic life belongs to a higher stage of human culture; but civilisation in any full sense only begins amongst men with settled habitations, who till the soil for their sustenance." Judged by this standard, Queensland has passed through the evolutionary stages. Eighty-five years ago, when the first British settlerslanded on the shores of Moreton Bay, the country was sparsely inhabited by savages of the lowest type, dependent upon native roots and fruits and the chase for a subsistence. For a quarter of a century, settlement on the coast was confined to a few convicts and military guards stationed at Brisbane and Ipswich, and a handful of free settlers. In the year 1840 some adventurous spirits, searching for sheep country west of the Main Range, found themselves on the magnificent tableland which Allan Cunningham had discovered in 1827, and which, during the intervening years, had remained untrodden by the foot of a white man. Soon the whole of the Darling Downs was parcelled out into large sheep stations. Agriculture, until the advent of small selectors many years later, was only represented by garden patches of cereals, vegetables, and fruit trees, grown for the use of the station-owners and their employees.
On the Eastern side of the Range the industry was in almost as backward a state before the arrival of the first shipment of agriculturists in the ship "Fortitude" in January, 1849. Gangs of convicts felled the scrub on the banks of the Brisbane River adjacent to the barracks; with the hoe they planted maize among the stumps and tree-trunks under the constant surveillance of armed guards, and, when the corn was ripe, dragged it in carts to the windmill on Wickham terrace, still a conspicuous landmark, though now used as an observatory. There the maize was ground into "hominy," an important item in the menu of those days.
A band of Moravian missionaries settled at what is now known as Nundah, and they and the majority of the "Fortitude" immigrants were the real pioneers of agriculture in the infant settlement.
Land orders, free immigration, and the discovery of gold were all factors in the development of the country, and the demand for farm lands led to the unlocking of areas previously given over to grazing. The pastoralists regarded agriculturists with disfavour, and in some cases with open antagonism. By the exercise of "pre-emptive rights," which their influence in the Legislature secured for them, they converted into freehold large blocks of the best land, as well as strategic areas by the possession of which they were able to close against settlement immense tracts preeminently suitable for farming. This was particularly the case in the settled districts of Moreton, Darling Downs, Wide Bay, and Burnett, and to a lesser degree in Maranoa. To such an extent was the right of preemption used that many squatters seriously crippled themselves, the price paid being too high for grazing to be remunerative on their freehold lands.
HARVESTING WHEAT, EMU VALE, NEAR WARWICKHARVESTING WHEAT, EMU VALE, NEAR WARWICK
HARVESTING WHEAT, EMU VALE, NEAR WARWICK
When, in after years, it would have been to their advantage to subdivide and sell to farmers, it was not in their power to give titles. In the course of time railways were built through some of these large estates, but their earning power was seriously hampered by country capable of supporting a very large agricultural population being devoted to pasturing sheep and cattle. As the most satisfactory solution of the difficulty, successive Governments have repurchased a number of properties at a cost exceeding a million sterling, and resold them in small areas to farmers, with highly gratifying results both to the settlers and to the State.
The immediate effect of the exclusive policy adopted by the pastoralists, however, was to force many selectors to take up land in dense scrubs on steep mountain slopes and in river pockets which were useless to stockowners. They had literally to hew their homes out of the jungle. Having no roads, they were thrown upon their own resources, and were obliged to live very largely upon the produce of their farms. Erecting a rude makeshift fence around a clearing of a few acres, the "cocky" or "cockatoo farmer," as he was contemptuously styled by those who regarded him as an interloper, planted maize and pumpkins among the remains of the scrub. Despite the ravages of bird and beast, he persevered, until at last success began to crown his efforts. A cow or two provided him with milk and butter, any surplus butter being sold to the storekeepers in the towns which quickly followed in the wake of settlement. Lucerne, sorghum, and other fodder crops formed part of his husbandry, live stock multiplied, and thus commenced that system of mixed farming to which thousands of the farmers of Queensland owe their prosperity. The coming of neighbours and the making of roads rendered life less lonely. With increasing prosperity, improved implements and methods were adopted. The plough succeeded the hoe; the harvester or the reaper and binder took the place of sickle and scythe; and the slab humpy or bark hut gave way to the comfortable farmhouse.
Though these early selectors were driven into almost inaccessible scrub, they were at least within the region of heavy rainfall, and, even where some distance from permanent streams, suffered little from drought. Settlers who went over the Range, profiting by the experience of the pastoral pioneers regarding the vicissitudes of climate, avoided the mistake of relying upon a single crop, or, to use a homely phrase, of putting all their eggs in one basket—an error which brought ruin to thousands upon thousands of the people who, between thirty and forty years ago, flockedfrom the Atlantic seaboard to the arid regions of America, west of the Mississippi. Mixed farming became the general rule on the further side of the Main Range, so that, if wheat and maize failed, the farmers had their flocks and herds and their shearing cheques as a standby until the next harvest was garnered.
It is sometimes said with scorn that there is comparatively little real farming in Queensland; but the conditions peculiar to settlement in the State are responsible for the trend of agricultural development. In the United States and Canada, the flood of immigration and the part played by the great railway companies as land-owners and promoters of settlement to provide traffic for their railways led to the creation of small holdings, which, in turn, led to intense cultivation of field and orchard crops. In Queensland, immigration has never been conducted on an extensive scale, and, indeed, for over a decade almost ceased. There was no great demand for land, and, as the mistaken belief long prevailed that the quantity of arable land was small, the area of so-called agricultural farms was made sufficiently large to enable a man to make a living from stock-raising, dairying, and pig-breeding. Field labourers being scarce and stock cheap, the farmer's aim has rather been to grow feed for his stock than crops for human consumption. He has followed the line of least resistance, so using his land as to carry on his operations with family labour and a little casual assistance during the busy seasons.
Events have justified this mixed farming from the point of view of the farmer, and doubtless the monthly returns from dairying will cause most of the farmers of Southern and Central Queensland to rely chiefly upon that industry so long as high prices continue, and to look to pig-breeding and lamb-fattening as subsidiary branches. But for the swelling tide of newcomers the supplies of rich scrub, alluvial flat, and volcanic downs country must sooner or later prove inadequate. Indeed, within the last few years settlers have been turning their attention to land which was once regarded as inferior. From the lighter soils of plain and upland larger and more certain crops of grain are being won, and on these lands dairying will take second place to cereal production.
Since an enlightened Legislature has resumed many millions of acres previously held under pastoral lease, and repurchased large estates in districts enjoying the advantages of railway communication, there has been no need to go far afield, and settlement has been chiefly confined tothe lands adjacent to the rivers and railways in the coastal belt, on the Darling Downs, and, of recent years, in the Burnett district.
Still, within the last thirty years, from one cause or another, groups of settlers have made their homes far beyond those limits. Thus the wheat lands of Maranoa were settled when there was no farming more than a few miles to the west of Toowoomba. Over eighteen hundred years ago Tacitus wrote of our Saxon forefathers: "They live apart, each by himself, as woodside, plain, or fresh spring attracts him." And this racial characteristic is strong in many of their descendants in Queensland. Better results and greater profits might have accrued from concentration, but the wonderful development of the British Empire owes much to this centrifugal impulse and to the spirit of independence and self-reliance which it has fostered; and as the flag has followed the adventurer in so many parts of the globe, so are the scattered pioneers of our Western lands nuclei around whom settlement is gradually gathering.
To people coming for the most part from the mother country, experience constituted no safe guide to the agricultural possibilities of their new home in the South. Naturally, mistakes were made and time and money lost before they discovered which crops were the most profitable, and on what kind of land those crops could be grown with greatest certainty of success.
When Dr. Lang induced the "Fortitude" immigrants to cast in their lot with the Moreton Bay settlement, in whose welfare he took so deep an interest, his desire was to establish the cultivation of cotton, to which he believed the climate and soil were specially adapted. But, despite the heavy crops produced on the river flats, cotton did not prove remunerative until, after the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the Lancashire spinners were reduced to such straits that they gladly paid high prices for all that could be obtained from Queensland. The product was of excellent quality, but the cost of picking precluded competition with countries where cheap labour was plentiful, and, with the return to normal conditions in the United States after the termination of the war, cotton passed almost out of cultivation, and has never since become a crop of commercial importance. An effort was made some years back to resuscitate the industry by the offer of a Government bonus upon manufactured piece goods. The bounty was earned by a mill at Ipswich, but the industry did not long survive the stoppage of the bonus. Since the drought of 1902 cotton has again been grown, principally in West Moreton and NorthQueensland, as a subsidiary crop, and farmers have been encouraged to extend their operations by the recent offer of a bounty by the Commonwealth; but, until machinery takes the place of hand-picking, farmers are likely to prefer crops which are not subject to competition with the cheap labour of other lands.
The first European colonists in America found there two valuable native products—maize and tobacco. Australia, on the other hand, presented a virgin field to the agriculturist. Like the rest of the Commonwealth, Queensland, blessed with the richest natural pastures, possesses no indigenous food plants of proved economic value. The early settlers naturally availed themselves of the wealth of native grasses and edible shrubs, and became graziers. When a commencement was made with agriculture, farmers sowed the crops to which they had been accustomed in Great Britain. Though these grew well, it was soon found that they were, on the whole, better adapted to the elevated downs than to the forcing climate on the coast. Maize, sugar-cane, and the fruits of the tropics, on the other hand, revelled in the sunshine and moist atmosphere of the seaboard.
The farmer's first consideration is how he may utilise his land to the best advantage. The most profitable crops are those for which there is a world-wide demand but only a limited area of production, and therefore little competition for the grower; or, alternatively, crops which, by reason of natural advantages, he can produce more abundantly and at less cost than his competitors. Next in value are crops for which he has a monopoly in a limited but protected market, or enjoys natural advantages which give him a partial monopoly in such a market. Of less value, but still profitable, are crops which he can place on the market as cheaply as his rivals.
In the first-mentioned category the Queensland farmer has butter, cheese, hams, and bacon. With good stock, cheap land, unrivalled pastures, and a climate which permits production to go on uninterruptedly from January to December, Queensland is most favourably situated, and farmers have not been slow to profit by their natural advantages.
Large as are the present dimensions of the dairying industry, they are small compared with the possibilities of expansion. Already the value of butter, cheese, and milk is well over £1,000,000 per annum, the butter export alone being worth considerably more than half that sum. The export has multiplied tenfold in the last six years; and, as Queensland isthe leading cattle State, there is every justification for believing that in dairy produce she will soon become one of the principal exporting States of the Commonwealth.
SURPRISE CREEK CASCADE, CAIRNS RAILWAYSURPRISE CREEK CASCADE, CAIRNS RAILWAY
SURPRISE CREEK CASCADE, CAIRNS RAILWAY
So late as twenty years ago, much of the butter consumed in Queensland came from the Southern States. The local product was inferior in quality, although an agreeable change from the imported salted butter. The passage of the protective tariff of 1888 gave a great impetus to the production of butter and cheese. A heavy impost was placed on dairy produce, and the Government lent further aid to the industry by sending experts through the farming districts in charge of travelling dairies. Valuable instruction was given; the cream separator came into general use, and there was soon a noticeable improvement in both butter and cheese. Factories sprang into existence in every agricultural centre, and by degrees the farmers became suppliers of cream instead of manufacturers of butter. Speedily production overtook the local consumption, importations ceased, and manufacturers began to look oversea for a market for their surplus stocks. Difficulties at once arose in connection with refrigerated space and freight rates. Regular shipments and rapid transport involved transhipment at Sydney from the coastal steamers, increased expense, and risk of deterioration. A State subsidy induced first one and then another shipping company to make Brisbane its terminal port in Australia, and to provide refrigerated chambers for butter at reduced freights; and now Queensland, in respect of these matters, is on precisely the same footing as the other States.
On the first appearance of Queensland butter in London, lower prices were obtainable than were paid for other brands with an established reputation, and some dissatisfaction was expressed by buyers on account of variations in quality. To remedy this, legislation was passed providing for Government inspection and grading of all butter intended for export. Whether grading and price do or do not stand in the relations of cause and effect, it is beyond dispute that it is only since the initiation of the system that Queensland butter has been on a parity with the butter of the Southern States and New Zealand, and the general standard is undoubtedly higher than in pre-grading days.
Coincident with the improvement in the quality of the butter, a great change for the better has taken place in the dairy herds. Good milking strains have been introduced, and more attention is paid to the feeding ofthe cows, with the result that it is by no means uncommon for the milk from one cow to bring as much as £8 or £9 a year.
The tariff of 1888 and the educative policy of successive Governments have also been largely responsible for the establishment of the allied industry of bacon and ham curing on a firm basis, and local brands are favourably known in many parts of the world.
Under the heading of crops for which our farmers enjoy a monopoly in a limited but protected market—or natural advantages which are equivalent to a partial monopoly—are sugar, maize, tomatoes, tropical and citrus fruits, and cigar tobacco. The Commonwealth tariff gives Queensland a practical monopoly in Australia for sugar. She has a virtual monopoly for tropical fruits, being the only State in which these are produced in excess of local requirements. The warmer climate and earlier crop give her temporary command of the Southern markets for citrus fruits, tomatoes, maize, and a number of minor products, before they mature in the cooler South, an advantage that will extend in time to many other crops, with the increasing interchange arising from interstate free trade.
Chief among products which can be placed as cheaply on the market as in other countries are the cereals. Queensland has all the essentials of a great grain-producing country. Her name does not yet figure among the list of exporters of foodstuffs, but the reasons for her backwardness are not far to seek.
At the close of 1908 the number of people in the State, scattered over its 670,500 square miles of territory, was only 558,000—little more than the population of Sydney or Melbourne, and less than that of several second-class cities in the mother country. Probably not more than ten per cent. of the people are engaged in farming, but, acre for acre and man for man, Queensland compares favourably with countries that are regarded as primarily agricultural. The lands most sought after have been scrub, deep alluvial flats, and black and chocolate loams; and, until recently, it was on land of this kind that most of the wheat and barley was grown. Heavy crops were harvested, as a rule, but the results were not uniformly satisfactory, and it is now recognised that these highly fertile lands are better suited for other forms of cultivation than the growth of cereals. For several years, incoming selectors—many Southern wheat farmers from preference—have been settling to the west of the heavy Downs country on the lighter soils of ridge and plain. From these lands,of which Queensland has a practically unlimited supply, but which the settlers of twenty or even ten years ago regarded as poor, more and more of the wheat crop is now coming. With less labour and at less expense than on the heavy soils, the farmer has greater certainty of a payable yield.
Sugar has first place among agricultural products from Port Douglas to the Mary River, followed by maize and the luscious fruits of the tropics. From Maryborough to the Tweed, maize takes precedence of sugar. Crops of less importance are potatoes, pumpkins, citrus fruits, pineapples, and bananas. In the Central and Southern divisions of the coastal belt, where dairying is the chief industry, large areas are under fodder crops and permanent grasses. From the Northern section of the littoral, thousands of bunches of bananas are shipped weekly to the South. Mangoes and pineapples are also sent South in very considerable quantities. Citrus fruits and tomatoes ripen at least two months earlier in North Queensland than in New South Wales and Victoria, and this fact has led to an important and profitable trade in these commodities being opened up with Sydney and Melbourne. The spices and food and other economic plants of the tropics grow to perfection north of Mackay. Cigar tobacco of good quality is being grown in small quantities in several parts of the North, and the Commonwealth bounty and the willingness of manufacturers to take the leaf should lead in time to the bulk of the cigars consumed in Australia being made from Queensland leaf. Despite the heat and humidity of the climate, dairying is being carried on with success as far north as Cairns, and at Atherton on the hinterland it promises to become an important industry.
Except on the Darling Downs, progress on the tableland has been retarded until a comparatively recent date through the land being locked up in pastoral leaseholds. At Atherton in the North and on the Burnett lands in the South, however, agricultural settlement is proceeding by leaps and bounds. Following the usual practice on scrub land, maize and grasses are the principal objects of culture, as they can be planted among the fallen timber and converted into milk long before the land can be put under the plough.
The Darling Downs, famous for their beauty and fertility, well deserve their title of "Garden of Queensland." Other districts, notably Atherton and the Burnett, have as good land, and the latter may have an equal area; but nowhere can there be seen 4,000,000 acres of splendidagricultural country requiring so little labour to bring it under cultivation. Far beyond the horizon stretch these fine lands, formerly clothed with nutritious natural grasses, but now passing into cultivation and dotted over with prosperous homesteads. More than 70 per cent. of the wheat, oats, and barley of Queensland comes from the Downs, which are capable of supporting a population far larger than the whole State now contains. Shipments of malting barley grown on the Downs attracted such favourable notice in England a few years back that offers were made to buy large quantities, and modern and well-equipped malting houses have since been built at Toowoomba and Warwick by a leading firm of English maltsters. Oats are grown for hay, no grain being ground into meal. There is an increasing tendency, founded on experience, to look to the lighter soils for cereal production, and to put the heavier volcanic soils of the Eastern Downs to uses for which they are better adapted. To dairying much of the prosperity of the Downs farmers is due. Butter and cheese factories have been erected every few miles along the railway line, and the number of cream-cans awaiting transport on every platform bear striking testimony to the importance of the industry. Most of the fruits of Northern and Southern Europe flourish, and the many fine orchards between Stanthorpe and the New South Wales border are giving handsome returns to their fortunate owners. In the neighbourhood of Texas, to the west of Warwick, pipe tobacco of fine flavour is being cultivated. The extension of the railway from Warwick to Goondiwindi has rendered available additional areas suitable for this crop, and circumstances favour the creation of a great industry.
The boundless plains of the West, where the annual rainfall varies from 30 inches to 10 inches, are the seat of the pastoral industry, and agriculture is still in its infancy. In the vicinity of Roma, on the Southern and Western Railway, wheat is the staple crop. Further West, on river banks and adjacent to artesian bores, vegetables, grapes, and oranges are grown. The oranges at Barcaldine, in the Central West, have been pronounced by the Government Fruit Expert to be the finest he has seen. In the same locality areas of grain, lucerne, and other hay crops show the capabilities of the plain lands when irrigated; but these small patches do not constitute an industry. The soil has in it all the elements of fertility, and is of inexhaustible depth; but, unhappily, the rainy season does not coincide with the period of growth of the cereals for which these lands seem otherwise intended by Nature; and until science becomes the handmaid ofhusbandry, and irrigation is demonstrated to be both practicable and remunerative, agriculture is likely to make little headway in the West.