GROWING OF COTTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18019, 18 February 1922, Page 10

GROWING OF COTTON.

INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA.

IMMENSE POSSIBILITIES. The cotton-growing possibilities in Australia were referred to at a Millions Club , luncheon in Sydney recently by Mr. Crawford Vaughan, a former Premier of I South Australia and now joint managing director of the Australian Lotton-growmg Association. He said that what Australia needed was the development of a primary I product which had a world-wide demand, I and which could bo cheaply produced. Cotton was such a product, like others, ' he' had ouco held file opinion that cotton j could not bo produced except by cheap coloured labour; but an examination ot the position convinced him that it was not dependent on coloured labour. In fact, it might be said that white labour meant good cotton, and black labour meant poor I cotton. He had seen the finest cotton ' grown, picked, and developed by white : labour, and the high wages paid during j the boom would havo staggered Australians. Australia had a large area of land suitable for cotton-growing, which needed an annual rainfall of 2o inches, and Dure would be no danger of frosts, as t'uere was in the United States. The British i Government was anxious to extend cottongrowing to Uganda, Nigeria, and other parts of Africa. Tho results had not been altogether satisfactory, and outside and India not more than 100,000 bales were produced in the British Empire The normal production in the United States was 13,000,000 bales. Cotton was needed more and more, and America was unable to produce the longstaple quality, importing it from Egypt. For the promotion of cotton-growing within tho Empire the British Government had made a grant of £1,000,000 to the Empire Cotton-growing Association, and the cotton-spinners had taxed themselves in order to assist. One of the functions of the association was to send experts abroad. It was possible, perhaps, that guarantees would be given in respect to Australian-grown cotton. The Australian Association was really working in collab oration with the British one, which had sent out Mr. W. H. Johnson, formerly the Director of Agriculture in Nigeria. Mr. Johnson went back through the United States in order to investigate the question of wages. His report was highly favourable to Australia.

In Queensland last year, from 2000 acres, 1600 bales were exported. This year seed had heon distributed to sow 21,000 acres. Ho anticipated that the crop would be worth from £200,000 to £250,000, and that next year the value would be doubled. The industry had passed its initial stages, and men who had grown cotton for five years were perfectly satisfied with the results. A man from Arizona had got 10001b. of seed cotton off 24 acres, the value per acre being £22. It cost him ljd for picking, I and the crop netted nearly £18 per acre. This man had said that "Queensland was more adapted for cotton-growing than Arizona. Cotton-growing was one of tho best ways of absorbing immigrants. If they went on an irrigation block they had to \iteit for somo years before fruit trees began to bear. This wait militated against the rapid growth of districts. In Arizona cotton was planted between fruit trees, and a man ought to earn within eight months £17 per acre from his cotton. To bring in 10,000 settlers in the first and socond years would cost £600 per settler. The settlers ought to receive from their land in the first year £2,OOG,000; so for an expenditure of £6,000,000 they should get £2,000,000 in the first year, There was no country in the world which possessed soil so rich as Australia had. Thare was no quarrel between wool and cotton, but it took 70 sheep to make a bale of wool, and a bale of eottoi could be token off two acres. Cottongrowing was ».n ideal industry for a man of small means.