PROGRESS IN VICTORIA.

Shannon News, 9 February 1923, Page 3

PROGRESS IN VICTORIA.

m— : • : ‘ £IO,OOO A YEAR FROM 70 AGEES

To net a return of £3OOO in one year from twenty-live acres of average quality of land is beyond tke,bounds of possibility for the majority of agriculturists (says the'.‘‘Age”). And to say that men are making such income \yith only a moderate -expenditure’. of enefrgy and money 'sounds like diction. Yet up in the' north,-east of Victoria there are quite ;,a number pf tobaccogrowersxvho .‘made from £2OUO to £3OOO last'year oil small holdings; In one .district five brothers, with an aggregate of seventy-nine acres, nettedbetween them £IO,OOO ' for their . last year’s crops, and scores of .growers can prove that their income; from tobacco has averaged between £IOO and £l5O per acre. That disposes once and for all, of the cry of the. Jeremiahs* that Australia can never be a tobacco-grow-ing land. As a matter of fact, no country in the world possesses more favourable conditions.

At last there sterns to be a reason- . able prospect of the industry obtaining a secure foothold here. Four years \ago the, area under tobacco in Victoria 'was only ninety-seven acres. Last year it v/as 60t) acres, and this season. 2000 acres. Owing .to drought condi-' tions and an outbreak of blue mould, however, it is expected that not' more than 15Q0 acres will be harvested. Still eVen if the total area is only 1500 acres, it will mean that the industry has expanded by 150 per cent, since last season. This gratifying expansion may be. attributed partly to the guarantee given by the British Tobacco Company ! (Australia), Ltd., to purchase 1,500,0001 bof Australian-grown deaf at prices Tanging up to 2s 6d a lb, :and largely to the interest which is now being taken in the industry by the,Department of Agriculture. In America middlemen buy up the • small farmers’ lots, and have the leaf carefully regraded at their Own warehouses. In Australia there are, fortunately, no middlemen in the tobacco business, and the work of grading therefore falls on the individual growers.

, j • The industry is one that deserves to progress. A vast unexploited market j for locally-grown tobacco exists .in Australia, and*! provided the home produst is or sufficiently • good quality, there is no reason whatever why the necessity of importing a single pound of foreign leaf. Just now the greatest need is a campaign to educate tho public taste. If tlip growers can got an opportunity of proving to the public that Australian leaf is equal to the foreign product, the future of the - industry, is assured.