FARMING IN QUEENSLAND.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume VIII, Issue 1374, 2 August 1886, Page 4

FARMING IN QUEENSLAND.

Accordicg to the " Queenslander " the business outlook in Queensland is not a particularly bright one. Gol draining is in a fairly prosperous condition and if the importation of coloured labour from the Pacific Islands, Java, or elsewhere, were winked at, cane-growing and sugar manufacturing which seemed to have weathered the crisis in their affairs, would go on. But the two departments of trade upon which the farmers mainly depend are in a very unsatisfar-tory condition. Wool-growing is suffe ing seriously from heavy drought, losses and extremely low prices. Cattle-raising has also to contend with special difficulties. The owners oiliornecL stoc*k arc clc'fjcnAciit for their income mainly upon their annual cast of >( fat " ; but during the last year a lanre number of the herds have not yielded a single beast fit for the butcher. Their owners have, indeed, been Jncky where starvation losses have not been sustained, for in such capes the want of fat stock simply means the loss of beasts which ought to have gone to the market. Herds which have escaped the bad sea*on and been so exceptionally favoured as to produce the usual draft of fat beasts must have proved almost mines of wealth to their owners. For famine prices have prevailed, and even tho .misfortunes of some stockowners have been the source unusual profit to others. But unfortunately, as the "Queenslander" points out. prospects for the future are not bright. In tZie eoa^t ai&tncts tl\c luxuriant crop of «ra<ss v.i\\cl\ now clothes the country means abundance of fat cattle a few months honec. Abudance in this respect means low if not unremnnerative prices, and unless an export market can be found, the year of plenty will be scarcely less disastrous to the great body of Queensland grasiers than the last two or three years of drought have been. The English market offers but a poor prospect ; for tallow, like all the other staple products of the world, is depressed in price, and neither frozen nor canned meat can be quoted at prices remunerative to the manufacturer except in seasons when meat is plentiful and cheap. Boiling for tallow formerly supplied a market eomjwtible with profitable grazing. At present it docs not do so; and the "Queenslander" considers that, unless tho meat-preserving establishments of the colony come to the rescue, a large proportion of the year's draft of fat beeves must remain on their runs enga^nl the the unprofitable pursuit of eating (iic-u-own heads off.