Australia Yearbook - 2001

Chapter 15—Agriculture 615
New South
Wales
COMMONWEALTH VINEYARDS, 1860–1 TO 1906–7
Victoria
Queensland
South
Australia
Western
Australia
Tasmania(a)
Commonwealth
Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres
Acres
Acres
1860–1 1,584 1,138 — 3,180 335 — 6,237
1865–6 2,126 4,078 110 6,629 634 — 13,577
1870–1 4,504 5,466 416 6,131 710 — 17,227
1875–6 4,459 5,081 376 4,972 675 — 15,563
1880–1 4,800 4,980 739 4,337 659 — 15,515
1885–6 5,247 9,775 1,483 5,142 624 — 22,271
1890–1 8,044 20,686 1,981 9,535 1,024 — 41,270
1895–6 7,519 30,275 2,021 17,604 2,217 — 59,636
1900–1 8,441 30,634 2,019 20,158 3,325 — 64,577
1901–2 8,606 28,592 1,990 20,860 3,629 — 63,677
1902–3 8,790 28,374 1,559 21,692 3,528 — 63,943
1903–4 8,940 28,513 2,069 22,617 3,324 — 65,463
1904–5 8,840 28,016 2,194 23,210 3,413 — 65,673
1905–6 8,754 26,402 2,044 23,603 3,541 — 64,344
1906–7 8,521 25,855 2,070 22,575 3,525 — 62,546
(a) There are no vineyards in Tasmania.
§ Minor Crops.
Nature and Extent—In addition to the leading
crops, there are many others which, owing
either to their nature or to the fact that their
cultivation has advanced but little beyond the
experimental stage, do not occupy so
prominent a position. Some of the more
important of these are those which may be
classed under the heads of Market Gardens,
Nurseries, Grass Seed, Tobacco, Hops, and
Millet, while the possibilities of cotton growing
in the tropical portions of the Commonwealth
have in recent years received considerable
attention, although the industry cannot yet be
said to have assumed definite shape. The total
area in the Commonwealth during the season
1906–7 devoted to crops of this nature was
79,689 acres, of which market gardens
accounted for 38,787 acres.
Cotton—Cotton-growing on a small scale has
been tried in Queensland, but so far without
marked success. The area under cotton during
the season 1905–6, viz., 171 acres, had fallen by
1906–7 to 138 acres. Hopes are entertained that
with the invention of a mechanical device for
the picking of the cotton the industry will
become firmly established, since the soil and
conditions appear eminently suitable for the
growth of this crop. Small areas in the Northern
Territory have also been planted with cotton,
while the tropical portions of Western Australia
have long been regarded as suitable for its
cultivation.
Coffee—Queensland is the only State of the
Commonwealth in which coffee-growing has
been at all extensively tried, and here the results
have up to the present time been far from
satisfactory. The total area devoted to this crop
reached its highest point in the season 1901–2,
when 547 acres were recorded. Since then the
area has continuously declined, and for 1906–7
amounted to only 256 acres.
Millet—Millet appears in the statistical records
of three of the Commonwealth States, viz., New
South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. The
total area devoted thereto in 1905–6 was 4,323
acres, by far the greater portion, viz., 3,765
acres, being in New South Wales. The
particulars here given relate to millet grown for
grain and fibre. That grown for green forage is
dealt with in the section relating thereto.
§ Fertilisers.
General—In the early days of settlement and
cultivation in the Commonwealth scientific
cultivation was in a much less developed state
than to-day. The early farmers were neither
under the necessity, nor were they as a rule
aware of the need, of supplying the constituents
to the soil demanded by each class of crop. The
widely-divergent character of the soils in the
Commonwealth, their degeneration by repeated
cropping, the limitations of climatic conditions,
the difficulties of following any desired order of
rotation of crops, all rendered it necessary to
give attention to artificial manuring. The
introduction of the modern seed-drill, acting