LOOKING FOR LAND.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 273, 11 August 1908, Page 3

LOOKING FOR LAND.

WHAT ONE SEES IN AUSTRALIA. I TRIP THROUGH NEW SOUTH WALES . . AND THIS DARLING' DOWNS. [Written' for The Dominion bt a New • Zealand Farmer.] To persons intending to make a similar a-ip to that described by the writer, it may je some information to. know the cheapest ind best method of travelling in Australia. Railway Concessions in Queensland. The day before arriving in Sydney, tho purser of the steamer issues certificates to passengers desirous of: visiting either Brisbane or Melbourao from Sydney, which entitle oversea passengers to a . special reduction of 33 per cent, on first or second-class return provided the journey is started within sev-2ir days of the steamer's arrival and ; tho return journey made within three months. ' With this ticket a person can go to Brisbane, Weak'his journey anywhere en route, and inspect tho country. Of course, he has to take out tickets at ordinary rates for branch liiics. .

When he .'arrives in Brisbane, the UnderSecretary for Lands has power to issue free passes to persons or groups of persons wishing to inspect lands in that State and become settlers' on small areas, or .to refund fares paid by- such persons who' purchaso and settle on small selections, j These concessions are not given to big buyers of land, speculators, tourists, etc. Land Seekers' Tickets in N.S.W. < The New South Wales Intelligence Department (opposite the' General Post Office, Sydney) issues what'they- call land seeker's' tickets at £4 14s. 6d.. for two. weeks, or. £9 for onef" month, first class—correspondingly less'for; second class—over' the whole of: the New. South Wales railways.' This ticket,' of 'course, .only takes you as far as Wallingara,' which, is on the border of New South Wales ■arid Queensland; and you have to- take out an ordinary, ticket beyond that on'the Queensland railways, the fares on'which'are higher than in New South Wales or New Zealand. You can also take a steamer from Sydney for-Brisbane arid work your way back bv rail. However, as I wished to see as much of the country as possible within the time I had at iny disposal, I took a land seeker's tickets over the Nsw South Wales railways, and left Sydney by the. mail train for Brisbane at 5.10 p.m. You can get sleeping berths on this train by- paying- extra for them;, but the carriages are very comfortable, being all boxed carriages, arid as the trains are not too full after you leave Newcastle you can sleep fairly comfortably on a seat. The long-distance passengers bring a rug and pillow into the carriage with them for .this purpose....

Tho City of Coal, Yon reach Newcastle at 8 o'clock; and a stoppage is allowed 'there' of 20 minutes for supper. ; You, get a.: good'.'.view of the harbour which looks liko a city on the water with its-mass of light from the shipping. ' Oris of' my* fellow passengers told me he strolled around the harbour a few days before "and counted >73 'large-sized vessels there waiting for their turn to get to tho wharves to-load coal. Between 150 and 160 thou- • sand tons of coal 1 are exported' from Newcastle weekly. • v . As Newcastle is not on the main track, a delay of about 20 minutes in caused. , The engine- turns'round and hitches' on to what was the rear end of the train, and resumes its journey. You reach Ben Lomond shortly after daylight—tho highest point on' the , line., This . station, is 4473 feet above sea,!-]evel, and,. the .atmosphere is .very cold. You reach Glen Inncs for. breakfast at-about 8.20..f1,m,, .when a. stoppage of 20 f is -made.A' . i•' No Refraslimsnt Cars. There'are no. refreshment cars on these lines but you get a very good meal at the stopping places for 2s. You reach Wallingara, the'border town, at 11.30 and change trains. The Queensland railways have a 3ft. 6in. gauge, -whereas those of New South Wales have a gauge of 4ft. Biin. You reach Warwick, in Queensland, ,at 2 o'clock. The country you pass through as seen from the train from daylight to hero is poor hilly rocky country, with small patches cultivated and -maize grown about the settlers' homesteads, which are wretched looking places, thinly timbered with stunted gum trees. At Stanthorpe, 26 miles from Wallingara, there 'is - some - tin -mining and fruit growing. It is tile district from which • Queensland is supplied with apples, pears, etc. A Government Sanatorium also exists' there. Tha Darling Downs. Warwick 'is the start- of the Darling Downs country: It is 64 miles from the border of' New South Wales, and is a goahead place, with all the convenience;; ot a city. The soil about here varies from a rich'chocolate to a red hematite colour. ;On the river flats tho soil is a deep rich black. ' ' The Darling Downs contain about four million acres,- and ar® composed of beautiful downs, with' river flats along tho Condcmaine Biver, the Myall, Oakey, arid Caranga Creeks, , and extensive open Well-grassed plains..- ' Park-liko Forests. ' i • One-third or m.oro is lightly timbered with box, gum, and various other trees. Splendid native grass grows all over it. . .The timbered country resembles a park, as the trees shade the grass without any scrub or-under-growth, and stock graze among the trees and ;do well.. Where the trees are thick 1 they are ring-barked, which, although it kills the trees, improves the, carrying capacity of the country. The best of the trees are left for shelter and shade, but the expense of clearing the land is not very great. To Toowoomba. Tho following day I took train for Toowoomba, the chief centre of the Darling Downs. The country you pass through between Warwick and Toowoomba is nice rich-looking downs, settled in blocks of a few hundred acres by farmers who grow lucerne, maize, etc., and -keep cows. ■ Tho latter occupation - seems the principal source of revenue. There ar& no creameries: farmers do their own separating and send the cream two or three timei a week to the factories in Warwick or Toowoomba. This country has only been cut. up . and. settled within' the. last four or five years, and previously was held by '' about. : half-a-dozen, persons. Good lajid along the railway line here is worth up to-£lO an acre. One would scarcely think'it was dairying land; it looks so : 'dry, and the grass is brown and parched. But a good rough covering on the ground shows there is very good' feed in summer. Farmers provide lucerne hay for this time of. the year, and also grow a lot of pumpkins for . their stock, a crop which seems to take tho place of our turnips to a great extent.

An Up-todalo "own. Toowoomba is a town of about 15,000 inhabitants—a very up-to-date place, with eight banks, a splendid "'own Hall, and municipal theatre, innumerable hotels, a club, ■* electric light, gas works, and, what is a very good thing in any town, no overhead wires about the streets. . The telephone and electric lipbt '.vires.arc bnrfetl in tho ground. The fiimatc hero at this time of tho year is <uid at night. This, they say, is the coldest 'iviuter Inoy have had for some years; it is characterised by what wo would call in Canterbury ''light frosts," and , beautiful wi'.nn sunny days. Situated as tho Downs aiv '.ibuut'2ooo feet above sea level, the air is nbar .and-bracing;"'but it must be pretty hot in summer. I notice oranges growing tiroWul some of the homesteads and doing well. Apples, pears, or any of our fnrft trees are not to bo seen about. ■ Tho Heart of tho Downs. To see tho groat Downs district you tako tho train from horo to the west, and travel over a branch that runs out COO miles from

Toowoomba. You pass through red basaltic country, and then into very rich black soil which is being cut up and settled on rapidly by scores of Victorians, South Australians, and Now Zealanders, but not many Queenslanders, strange to say. The crops you see on this rich-looking soil are very disappointing. Where you see wheat that has been sown for months, half of it seems dead; and where it has been sown lately, if you root up tho ground, tho seed is as dry as if it wero still in the sacks. The ground is dry and full of open cracks, so that nothing .could germinate in it. I don't think this country will, ever bo a great, wheat-growing country. I notice from statistics that' in the year 1898 an area of 46,129 acres wero sown in wheat in tho State. This quantity rose to 150,958 acres .in 1904. . Sinco 1904 it has gradually reccded, till last season only 82,461 acres wore under wheat. This, in tho face of the increased settlement and subdivision of estates, shows- clearly that wheatgrowing is not paying tho sottlers. The other crops grown are maize and barley, which are sown in small areas. Subterranean Water Plentiful. Lucerne, which is tho principal thing grown, does', well wherever wator is within 10 or 12 feet from the surface, which is not many places. But water is obtainable on the Downs by sinking or boriiig anywhere between 20 or 200 feet from the surface. The country is very well supplied with water for domestic and stock purposes from tliese wells by the aid of 'windmills. But I have only seen , ono artesian flow at the township of Dalby. This is on the Downs, but at the edge of the artesian. area. A bore was put down here for the. supply of the town about 1100 feet.. The wator is quite warm and soft. Tlie town board have bath houses erected at the flow for tho convenience of the public. Rapid Settlement. All tho small townships on this western lino are.growing fast as tho properties are •being cut;up and settlement advances. The Government have purchased an estate oil this lino, about 120,000 acres, and are subdividing it for closo settlement. I understand they paid about £3 10s. an acre : for'it. They sell the land to settlors on 25 years' torms, when it becomes tho-settler's freehold. Land close to tho. railway line ■is "offering at £2 15s. to £4 10s. ail acre, along most of this line, and I think it could safely carry one'sheep to the acre in its natural stato. ; •' In a good season, or after rains in summer, it would carry a lot of stock, but to bo anything''like safe the above is, in my opinion, about its limit. The average rainfall over these Downs is 27 inches; but in some seasons they get very dry spells, and as this class of land bakes and burns up very badly, being hot and dry, it-requires an average of 60 inches of rainfall to make it one of the grandest grazing countries in the colonies. That is, if it were evenly' distributed; but what rain they do get is a burst'generally; tho flat ground is covered, and then follows a very dry time, when the ground cracks and bakes up. Tho whole of this district is of volcanic' formation, and the . black and red soil seems to bo burnt lava that is spread over the wholo area. It is very seldom less than threo' and often up to 30 feet deep. 1

The Stock. ' . • The stock carried. on the big properties is tho merino and halfbred sheep, which do well, also cattle, and a tremendous lot of pigs where they keep cows.: At every homestead there were mobs of turkeys, but'very few fowls. Also at every little township there were mobs of goats running on town commons. .. -v.'-ii' Lucorna Cro|ss. During the last" ten years-'they"have had to 1 cut the lambs' throats to savo the ewes' lives on most of the Downs. This, of course, could to a great extent 'bo avoided by' providing lucerne hay to -tide ■ over -these -dry spells... Persons taking up country should try; and get some'luceivrie'growing land in it for this pur-' pose.. They can grow six or seven crops a' year in a good season, and cut over a ton to the acre of hay. It is cut green and stacked, and makes beaiitifu) chaff. The plants last in the ground eight to ten years without renewing. The roots go down into the ground on this open loose soil to-a depth of ten or twelve feet, and-if the lucerno gets any moisture at all it seems invariably to do well.. . Ths Posts. There are no rabbits to be seen anywhere on the Downs; nor any wallaby, except in the back country in the scrubs; nor dingoes, which are so bad in some parts of Australia. But the great curso to Queensland is the prickly pear. This is nothing but a species of cactus which can be seen growing in hothouses in New Zealand.

So bad is this pest that tho Government are offering £10,000 to anyone discovering an effective means of destroying it. Th'ey are also carrying materials free on the railways for farmers tp spray it with. This plant 'is not a native of the country, but was planted by the early settlers in their gardens. It grows a beautiful yellow flower, and a nice fruit aboiit tho size of a bantam's egg. This is not bad to cat, and it makes a nice jam; but it spreads at an alarming rate, taking complete possession, and costs up to £20 an,-aero to clear. It thrives on the wide roads, stock routes and reserves, unoccupied lands, leaseholds, etc., and spreads on to freeholds unless. constantly looked after. Orio strange thing about it is that the seed will not grow unless it first passes through an animal or bird.. Birds eat the pear, which contains the seed, and distribute: it everywhere. It [will grow and thrive just as well cut off and tied on to a wire fence as planted in .-the ground. Cattle nibble it when pushed for feed, and tho smallest bit broken off by them will striko root and grow; Whero it is thick no stock-will go through it. 'Where it gets into the bush and scrubs the land is given up entirely.

Land for Nothing and a Bonus. There is any amount of land to be had for nothing, called prickly pear selections, which the Government gives free to anyone who will take them, and allow 12s. 6d. an acre, bonus for the clearing of them. The young plant does not seed for the- first three years, which gives an opportunity of keeping it down before it gets too thick. The way to clear it is to grub it up, fork it into a dray, cart it to heaps of dry wood, and' set firo to the wood, which burns 'it to an ash; or dig a trench and bury it . in the ground about four feet deep. Both these operations are tedious and expensive. - _ Other weeds whicli arc bad in some places are the Bathurst burr and "Stinking Roger," but these are onty playthings compared with the pear, which is a mastor over the ingenuity of man. Droughts, frosts, or floods havo no effect ou it. Troubles of Sheep Owners. i The death-rate among sheep here is heavy. Lambs take the worm, and have to be dosed frequently. One farmer with about 1000 owes told mo he- only tailed 70 per cent. His loss from deaths was 20 per cent. The balance he sold at ss. 6d. a head. Tho grazier's principal sourco_ of revenue is tho wool clip. Wool from this district fetches big prices. Up to Is. 3d. a lb. was paid for a merino clip at Brisbano this last season. In New South Wales. Travelling through New South Wales for a fortnight after leaving Queensland I saw some beautiful country, hundreds of miles of nico open grassy plains covered with rich black or chocolate soil, nearly all held in big runs. Near Moree I saw part of a mob of 25,000 fat halfbred wethers sold in ono line at 15s. each off Edgeroi Station. Also at Moreo saleyards a mob of 770 splendid fat shorthorn bullocks were sold, all off another property. These big properties used to suffer greatly from want of water in some seasons; but now they havo large numbers of bores down, and the water drawn from them over tho plains looks liko the water races drawn from the rivers over tho Canterbury Plains. Ono runholder told mo he put a bore down 1200 feet. It cost him 20s. a foot. (They aro now put

down'for 13s. a foot.)- Ho got a supply of 1,200,000 gallons a day, and had distributing trenches over his plains from it for sixtythree miles. i Hot Water. Tho water is beautiful and soft, but comes up very hot. At Moreo you can get baths as hot as at Rotorua from the bore that serves the town. Tho Now South Wales Government are putting down bores in some places, and rating tho land Id. and 2d. an acre/ which in a few years liquidates tho cost.