Rosewood History
Corn husking at August Kraatz’s barn, Tallegalla, Ipswich, 1916
Photo: Rosewood Scrub Historical Society Src: Picture Ipswich
The following articles are newspaper reports from 1876. They were written by an Agricultural Correspondents, men who personally bore witness to what they wrote about, thus giving a realistic description of the farming pursuits in the beginning years of settlement. Several of the district’s pioneers are mentioned.
Queenslander, Saturday 4 March 1876, page 21
FARMING AT ROSEWOOD SCRUB – 1876 (1)
It is scarcely five years since the first adventurous settler found his way into this fertile tract of country, and already the land taken up and settled on extends to an area of not less than twelve miles square of Scrub and forest The railway skirts it on the south; and although at present trains only stop there as may be re-quested, it does not require the gifts of prophecy to say that ere long Rosewood station will be one of the chief feeders of traffic on the line.
I had some difficulty in finding my way to the back settlements, and I was told that I was sure to lose myself. I was, however, fortunate enough to find a guide, who led me safely over many a long, though I cannot say weary, ” foot fa,” and under whose experienced knowledge I saw much more of the district than otherwise I could have done.
The first peculiarity I noticed was the absence of any thing like a tolerable road to the interior of the scrub, while a perfect labyrinth of bridle or foot tracks exist in every direction, not only most perplexing to a stranger, but often so to the settlers themselves. This want of a main road the settlers are now endeavoring to have reme-died, and at the time of my visit there was a public meeting on the ground, presided over by J. C. Foote, Esq., M.L.A., at which this subject was extensively discussed, and a series of resolutions proposed and unanimously carried, which, under the care of the member, Mr. Foote, will, it is hoped, be the means of remedying the evils complained of.
The want of water is also seriously felt, but its supply will go hand-in-hand with the formation of roads. Nothing can be better adapted for retaining a constant supply of water than the formation of the country, when you have every mile or so a short gently Inclined gully, which, by being dammed near its lower level, would not only form a reservoir of sufficient capacity for all the local wants, but, at the same time, the dam would be used as a mound by which the gully could be crossed.
These two wants have occasioned an amount of extra toil and labor to the settlers, almost inconceivable even in this land of settlers’ hardships. At many of the farms I visited they had to “hump” everything either going from or coming to the farm, two and three miles, and at one place I was assured that the settler’s wife had at the present time to carry water five miles, she naively telling me that she drank the contents of one bucket while carrying the other.
The front settlement, nearest to the railway, is chiefly taken up by British colonists, while behind, in the interior of the scrub, the population is almost entirely German. The holdings in the majority of cases do not exceed eighty acres, some of them only forty, and the largest of a few exceptional cases, is about three hundred, As may be readily supposed, the cultivation of such a district, so recently settled, is both scattered and primitive, and after using my own observation, and making all the enquiries I could of the many intelligent men I met with, I came to the conclusion that upon the aggregate of the whole selections there might be about thirty per cent under cultivation; the smallest cultivation paddocks being from ten to twelve acres, and the larger forty and fifty, even sixty acres. The whole of the ground is as yet under hand labor by the hoe, and the energy and untir-ing industry of the settlers may easily be under-stood.
The crops at present chiefly grown are maize and potatoes. Grapes also do very well, and I saw several small flourishing vineyards, and drank the product. Garden stuff of all kinds grows well, and no doubt would be profitably followed if better access existed. It is, however, pretty evident that this will soon be an industry of the district; from the facilities presented by the railway, and the capa-bilities of the soil, it only requires good roads in order to be developed. Maize is, of course, the staple, as it requires the least cultivation, and on the virgin soil it does very well; and throughout the country where I was, it was of a fine healthy color, and well planted. The early crops which had been gathered were not heavy, having been caught by the drought, but the corn was of fair average quality. These crops seem to be a good deal eaten by vermin, but in most cases this has been re-medied by the erection of close palings.
The first expense in breaking up the scrub land here is from £12 to £14 an acre ; but this depends much on the position and lay of the ground for easy falling and clearing. Sometimes it may be done for £10, but this was considered excep-tionally low. The after expenses of cultivation, being altogether manual with the hoe, and per-formed by the farmer and his family, can scarcely be stated at a money value ; but, from some who roughly put the items together, I gathered that the whole might be about 20s. per acre.
A good crop here is supposed to yield from 45 to 50 bushels of saleable corn per acre, which is pro-duced without further trouble or outlay than the mere hoeing I have mentioned. Potatoes, in point of extent of growth, follow next, and seem to be of fair quality, and were in course of being planted ; and I saw a late-planted summer crop making a very fair show indeed. Lucerne is beginning to establish itself, and grows very well, but is not yet at its best; while wheat seems to thrive, and I procured two very fair samples of last crop ; one of the Egyptian variety, the other the white lammas. The quantity was too small, however, to afford any idea of the number of bushels or weight per acre.
Everything on the Rosewood Scrub is still in its infancy, but an immensity of work has been accomplished under the most disadvantageous conditions. Now that the existence of such a large body of useful and energetic immigrants is known to exist who have persevered in establishing themselves in the face of great difficulties, the least that Government can do for them will be to give them the roads and water supply they stand in need of so much.
Brisbane Courier, Saturday 5 August 1876, page 6
FARMING AT ROSEWOOD SCRUB – 1876 (2)
Since the date of my last visit during the wet weather, the roads and tracks in the scrub have become firmer, and little difficulty is experienced in getting along. This time I visited the farms farthest away from the railway line, and I found a large population of Germans who are busily engaged in the usual operations of scrub farming, such as felling, clearing, splitting, and fencing, &c. Corn-pulling has commenced and will shortly become general. I have been taken to task by one or two farmers in this locality for under-estimatiug the probable crop for this season, but I see no reason to alter my statement, which was, that the average yield will not go over twenty-five bushels. There are some farmers who doubtless will get fifty and even more per acre, but I take the average over the whole of what I saw in a collective sense, not speaking of any individually.
Just before arriving at the first German homestead I reached a farm held by Mr. Ponting, who has out of a homestead of eighty acres, thirty planted in corn. I went through it all with him, and his own candid opinion was that he had only twenty five bushels per acre, taking it all through. He has sown prairie grass through a portion of the standing corn, and intends planting buffalo grass as soon as he can obtain roots. The sowing down of a portion of the land in grasses is an absolute necessity here, as the natural herbage dies off at certain seasons, and there is nothing left on which stock might be raised. I suggested the com stalks as fodder, managing them in the same manner as the Americans, but Mr. Ponting told me this had been tried by a neighbor, who cut the corn before it was fully ripe and cooked it in the fields. The result was that the non-matured grain shrivelled up, and the stalks themselves became as dry as if they had been left standing till the corn was ripe, and they did not contain any more nourishment than the latter. The cattle refused the unpalatable fodder, There are thirteen pigs here, two of them of a good looking breed. These are kept for home consumption. The great want of all the farmers appears to be a pig of moderate dimensions for family use, and one of larger growth for sale, both to be quick fatteners and small eaters. If a pig has to be kept for two years before attaining a weight of 200 lbs., he is evidently not a gentleman able to pay the rent, and a rent-payer is what the homesteader wants.
Mr. Chas. Freeman, who adjoins Ponting, told me that his corn would not average more than twenty-five bushels per acre. He has sixteen acres under crop, and feeds eight pigs for farm use. Neither these farmers nor any others I have met have any faith in maize as a paying crop. All are looking out for something which will give a better and surer return. Some suggest sugar. No doubt cane would grow very well, in fact some I saw looked very healthy, and frosts do not visit the high lands of these scrubs, but it is not at all probable that with the experience already gained by mill owners, any capitalist would venture so risky a speculation as erecting a mill in a mountain scrub where there is no permanent water, and where it is highly probable that, once the scrub is swept away, frosts will make their appearance.
At Ponting’s farm the now cleared road stops, and a small cleared track leads to the next farm belonging to Mr Wiegand. There is visible the usual energy which characterises the German settler. Cultivation is not confined to one staple, but wheat, oats, and vines vary the sameness. I found the owner was away building a house with his son, who had taken up a new selection adjoining the father’s. I had a long conversation with this very intelligent farmer, and his ideas corroborated my own on the subject of farming. As I have given these in previous papers, there is no need to repeat them. The son said if anything was to be made out of farming he would make it, and if not, why he could always go to work and earn a good living; at the same time he was certain he could make it pay by hard work and frugality.
His neighbor Eitel is an old resident of Oxley Creek, and has also made his mark in this fast-disappearing mass of scrub. The numbers of settlers in this portion of the district are so great that to particularise each would be simply impossible. Everywhere the same style of cultivation and the same crops obtain with smaller or larger results.
I must not, however, omit to mention a farm I found in a piece of open forest known as Sally Owen Plain. This plain is not, is its name would seem to indicate, destitute of timber, but is an open undulating piece of country lying in the midst of the scrub, and rather heavily timbered. The farm in question is about a mile from the last mentioned, and is devoted in great part to tobacco growing. Whatever difliculties have attended many growers of the soothing weed, the Ulrichs seem to have been eminently successful. Their mode of culture is simple, and the preparation of the leaf still simpler. As soon as the leaf has reached the stage of cutting it is simply stripped off and hung up in a barn to dry, care being taken not to carry the dessicating process too far and thus rendering the leaf brittle and liable to powder. A second crop is treated in the same manner. The stalks are not cut down to the ground, but are left standing like old cabbage stalks denuded of sprouts. The leaf, when sufficiently dried, is packed in bales and sent to town where it is purchased by a manufacturer, Mr Hocker, at from 7d to 9d per lb , according to quality. Mr Hocker, I was informed, has obtained sufficient leaf this season to enable him to keep five men constantly at work for six months manufacturing cigars and tobacco. The industry promises to increase, the Ulrichs having lately supplied several of their neighbors with seed. The great drawback to successful tobacco cultivation is the caterpillar, which devours the leaves. The grower must carefully go over the field as often as twice a day, and destroy the destructive grubs, which would otherwise ruin its prospects of a crop.
Should tobacco and wheat be found gencrally suitable to the Rosewood climate and soil, then a comfortable independence is in store for these hardworking farmers. There is no room to doubt whether corn will pay as a staple crop. All are unanimous in denouncing it, but still it must be grown at first in the new lands until the stumps are ready for extraction. Once the plough is at work the chances of the farmer are greatly increased. It is the hand labor required in new scrubs which has the greatest share in lessening the profits of the farmers, and until this is djone away with they will work hard and reap little. Several of the settlers who have trades cultivate a little, and depend upon their trade for a living. These men are comfortably off, and as the roads are opened and the stumps come out, they will derive still more profit from their respective trades.
Amongst the chief tradesmin are Smallbones, who is a first rate blacksmith; John Dart, an old Oxley man, in the same line of business; and Austin, also from Oxley, who is a wheelwright, and has orders enough for drays and other implements to keep him comfortably employed. There are also shoemakers and carpenters, who come in for a share of the trade which necessarily arises from the presence of so many thousand people engaged in agriculture in a limited area.
Returning in the dusk of the evening from Sally Owens’ Plain, I had ocular proof of the necessity for paling fences around the farms. The wallabies appeared to be innumerable. They sat on their haunches on the open tracks, like rabbits at a hedgeside in England. As I passed along, I could hear the flop, flop as they hopped away into the dusky recesses of the dense scrub. Wihtout the fences they would be a perfect scourge to the farmers, whose crops would be utterly destroyed by them, and as it is an immense amount of damage is caused by these animals.
I have, in my former notes on Rosewood, remarked upon the roads. The same, remarks hold good of the roads (!) at the back of the scrub towards the mountains. These are simply impassable in wet weather, and many a tale I was told of men carrying the loads their backs, which the horses were unable to drag through the deep mire. The sooner a few thousands are expended for the farmers the better, as no class labors under such disadvantages in respect to roads as do they.
Water is another great consideration in this district. Three dams hae been made by carrying the solid road across the gullies instead of introducing culverts, but these dams are small, and quite insufficient for the requirements of the district. They could easily be made of quadruple dimensions, by filling up the roads where they cross the gullies, and levelling the hills to a certain extent. Culverts are expensive, and of not nearly such utility as dams would be in the scrub. A little attention to these matters when making the roads would not cost the authorities a cent more, and would be of incalculable benefit to the settlers.
There is another grievance under which the “homesteaders” labor. In some cases new roads have been cut through farms and homesteads, thus dividing a farm and compelling the occupier to erect an increased amount of fencing. In the case of a man who purchases his land with land orders or cash, a very substantial compensation is made, but the home-steader is only compensated in twice the amount of rent paid by him up to date of resumption of the road, and gets no allowance for his clearing or other labor. One man told me that, for three acres and a half of cleared land taken from him for a road, he had received £1 whilst another man, who had about the same amount taken from him, received £27. These are matters which require looking into, and adjusting on a scale more proportioned to the loss thus occasioned to the settler.
There appears to he a taste for literature amongst the Germans. Nearly every house I went to was supplied with German newspapers. The children I met in my rambles were clean (ie, as clean as it is possible for children to be who wade to school through miles of mud and water). I was struck with the air of politeness exhibited by them. In nearly every instance my queries were replied to as civilly and cheerily by the young “Scrubbers” as could possibly be expected.
For the present I quit the Scrub, to revisit it when the wheat shall be ready to reap. Great fears are expressed by some for the crop on account of its present rankness, but others are of opinion that it will be all right, and wheat will become an established crop for the Scrub. So might it be.