SUGAR CULTIVATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 April 1920, Page 3

SUGAR CULTIVATION.

GREAT PALLING OFF IN AUSTRALIA. If all the lands under sugar cane in Australia were concentrated in one block they would occupy a space of only twenty miles, by a little more than fourteen miles, or a square with sides of about seventeen miles. Yet in 1917 sufficient sugar was produced in the Commonwealth to more than meet all local requirements. Since then the cultivation has fallen off, and this year's harvest is not expected to total'more than 180,000 tons, which is 100,000 tons below requirements. It «-as found by the Royal Commission which recently inquired into the sugar industry that there are no extensive compact areas of rich agricultural land in the Commonwealth which are suitable for sugar cultivation on a large scale. The various centres of production are separated by long distances, and the industry is conducted, under various condition's of soil, rainfall and .temperature, which materially affect the method and cost of cultivation. In New South Wales and in Queensland districts south of Maekav there has been a gradual displacement of sugar cultivation by other forms of asrieulturnl effort, of which dairying is the most important. In some parts of the New 'South Wales river districts dairying and fruit production have wholly displaced cane cultivation.