"QUEENSLAND AS IT IS."

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 11370, 1 September 1908, Page 5

"QUEENSLAND AS IT IS."

"Darling Downs Native" writes to the Wairarapa Daily Times: — It may not be generally known that the Queens, land Government pay a .-liberal commission to land agents ior inducing persons from abroad to settle there. I have nothing to gain in writing as I do showing the serious drawbacks to successful farming in Queensland, therefore my remarks will carry the greater weight. It does not 'matter what a Queensland farmer grows he has some plague to contend with, and I am not at all surprised when I receive letteia telling of heart-broken, ruined farmers giving up in despair. The low price of the land must 'carry conviction that it is not a desirable country. Much has been said about rich soil thirty or forty feet deep. I never knew any farmer cultivating to that depth. In *New Zealand, the first foot suffices to lead Australasia in farm, produce. Some would say, if all what I say is true, it is surprising that people live there at 'all. But use is second nature. Take the com. paratively small . jnumber who die from .snake bites for instance. This is not because snakes are" rare, but .because everyone is continuously looking for therii— quite unconsciously, and the remarkable turn Of speed even the aged and infirm display when a snake is sighted. I luive even trod on them and had them coil round my leg and still escape being bitten. Most of the country schools are equipped with the necessary appliances for the cure of snake bite. When bitten, especially by the death-adder, tho chance of reaching an hospital is small, the victim dying within half an hour. This is not the first time that Queensland has been boomed — immigration lecturers liavo been in Great Britain at various time* describing it as a land flowing with milk and honey. . Immigrants came in great numbers, but the majority soon iound N their way to the southern States."