THE DARLING DOWNS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9110, 9 June 1908, Page 7

THE DARLING DOWNS.

FURTHER REMARKS BY MR F. A. HOSKING. ' The information respecting the taking up of land in the Darling Downs, Queensland, imparted by Mr F. A. Hosking, to a Wairarapa Age reporter, last week, has been read ' with widespread interest by farmers and the public generally. Mr Hosking says that in mentioning that the success of the farmer deupended Wholly on the lucerne crop, he meant on the present prices now be- . ing paid for land. He said that in its i natural condition the country would tpay well to farm under the prices. While stating that areas up to '50,000 acres can now be purchased he did not mean large numbers of such areas, as when the Yandillah and Jonclaryan ustatea were cut up ' there would be no more such large 1 tracts purchasable in the rain belt. ;Mr Hosking mentioned that the altitude of the land in the vicinity of 'his property was somewhere about .2,000 feet above sea level. He had been told that turnips would not grow there, but on his visit he saw a very healthy crop of swedes, and also^ crops v bfnipe. Still, lucerno is the feed the farmers favour. "A grass which was boomed throughout this Dominion," said Mr Hosking, "and which in its native district is a marvellous food, paspalium, was being boomed in Queensland, when i was there, also Dther grasses. None of them had been thoroughly tried, as a matter of fact, and from what I saw rf paspaliuni areas the grass did not do impressively well." Mr Hosking motioned that the average maximum temperature given him for the Down country was 85 degrees, and the mean 61 degrees. Thi3 record was for the past thirty years. "The country is not so well supplied \with freezing companies as we are in New Zealand," was a comment by Mr Hosking, "but there is likely to be an important move in that direction shortly. It will be necessary, too, if up-to-date farming is to be carried on."