CHAPTER II.
AGRICULTURE IN QUEENSLAND.
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."