Rosewood History. Qld.

Settlers in a slab hut on a dairy property c. 1877

Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld.: 1866 – 1939), Saturday, 11 February 1905, page 34

OUR AGRICULTURAL CENTRES.
ROSEWOOD AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.
By J. C. M.

Agriculture was young in the State when Rosewood began to make itself felt as one of our great producing centres. The district is now, in some cases, having to do with a second generation of farmers, the sons of the original selectors. The old men did the “hard graft” incidental to pioneering, and younger men are now entering into and reaping the reward of their labours. Rosewood was among the first of our scrub centres in which settlement took place, and here, as elsewhere among the scrubs of West Moreton, the German element is largely in evidence. 

Though by no means among the largest from some standpoints, it is among the most important of our scrub districts. It was one of the earliest in the State to establish dairying, for the Lanefield factory was among the first to make butter by machinery in Queensland. The progress of the district for several years-is interwoven with that of the dairying industry, and in point of magnitude Rosewood comes out third among the great dairying districts of West Moreton. 

The area of Rosewood is limited; in point of fact one could ride around it in a day, and  exhaust neither man nor horse. The holdings consequently are small, generally 80 acres, though cases are not rare where families have been brought up on half that acreage. No district in West Moreton is so closely settled as is Rosewood. There is a picturesqueness about the district which never fails in striking the passing stranger favourably. A spur thrown off from the Little Liverpool Range runs aloug its northern and western boundary, and gives variety to the landscape. Crossing this spur, you drop into Minden and Marburg, and the state of things that suddenly meets you is as much Teutonic, both in language and customs, as though you had dropped into a district on the Weser or the Rhine. Rosewood comprises the area of scrub country south of this dividing spur, at most twenty square miles; and of all the agricultural centres of the State none of a similar area carries so large a population. 

For many years agriculture was the only employment of the people. Rosewood was known as one of the great maize-producing centres of the State, and its demand and price regulated the social enjoyments of the selectors. The vagaries of the produce market and the low values generally ruling made the lot of the farmer anything but a desirable one. The memories of the past are those of toil, and in some cases privation. In the early days business was done principally with Ipswich, and the one rule was general—exchange of produce for rations. The storekeeper regulated prices, gave instructions when to bring in the maize, and generally acted as the main factor in the distribution of all the produce which was grown at Rosewood. The king of the district was the Ipswich storekeeper. It makes all the difference to the selector receiving cash and being paid in rations for his produce. For many years this practice was common, and there are traditions of doings in the early days, which only by a stretch of the imagination can be reconciled with either ethics or morality. 

The early selectors were, in the main, poor men; the demands for produce came in the development of the North and the expansion of the sugar industry; dairying was unknown, so that the early years of Rosewood have left memories of privation, days of toil and nights of anxiety. To know the early settlers of the scrubs in West Moreton is to have in your circle of friends some of the best men who have ever come to Queensland. The State honours the men of a younger generation; history will hold in greater honour those who laid in trackless scrubs the foundation of our producing interests. 

For some years very little produce has left Rosewood for the markets at Ipswich and Brisbane; yet there has been no falling off in the acreage under the plough, and the quantities of maize, lucerne, and other kinds of produce being grown was never greater. The area of the holdings being small, every acre is utilised either for grazing or growing fodder, and only on this basis can the dimensions of the dairying industry be reconciled with the smallness of the area of the holdings. 

Rosewood is an instance of a place in the State where men understand their business, throw enthusiasm into it, and utilise every acre to make it successful. Such men must succeed. The change that has been brought about in the employments of the people can only be described as on industrial revolution. You might count on the fingers of one hand the number of produce-laden waggons in a month making (for the railway station; while vehicles of all kinds in the early morning are met with by the dozen making for the creameries, or otherwise conveying cream cans to the different depots. The limited area, of Rosewood makes a daily delivery of cream possible, and its quality in consequence is about the highest m the district. No such quality can be obtained in cream, in some cased carried thirty miles in an open van, and then by rail twice that distance to reach the factory. In this respect Rosewood has the advantage of location. 

Speaking with Mr. John Mahon some ween ago, he said: “When I visited Rosewood in 1896 there was a small creamery at Lanefield. The two first separators in the State, one was at Kirchheim and the other at Lanefield.” (Mr. Mahon, if he is reported correctly, made a mistake in supposing that the first separators in the State were at Lanefield. We know of four that were in use for factory purposes in Queensland at least seven years earlier than 1896.- Ed. “Q.”). “I found everything obsolete, and few farmers there had any conception of the principle of dairying on scientific lines. The cattle were inferior, milking was performed once a day, calves were allowed to run with their mothers, and growing fodder for stock never entered ohe imagination.” This is a picture of the dairying industry as it was conducted in 1896. 

Well now reverse the picture, and show the industry at Rosewood by a statement of fact after a progress of nine years, fodder is grown more largely than ever; little or none is sold; it is all fed to stock. Milking, without exception, is done twice a day, and calves are separated from their mothers from the hour of being dropped. The methods now being followed are the opposite to those which obtained only a few years ago, and the result is Rosewood is a centre of vigorous dairying activity; in fact, the industry has wiped out all other forms of employment. The herds are not large, but they are carefully selected, and number among them specimens of the beat milking strains. Those of Alexander Rogers, Thomas and William Yarrow, Charles Lane, and George Dutney are equal to anything in the State. 

There are in the Rosewood district 347 dairymen, and they are now milking, approximately, 4,352 cows. The annual output of cream is about 120,000 gallons. The fame of the Lanefield batter is widely known in every Northern centre. There are four creameries in the district. The hand separator is largely in use, and, however much the fact may be deplored, it is superseding not only at Rosewood, but in all parts of West Moreton the creamery company. As things look, the fall of the creamery in favour of the hand separator is only a matter of time. 

Few places suffered so heavily during the drought as did Rosewood. It could scarcely be otherwise; the farms were overstocked, and the fodder conserved was not equal in quantity to the demands made upon it. The consequence was the losses were heavy. Visiting one of the Rosewood dairy farmers some months ago, and pointing to a heap of bones,  “These.” said he, “represent forty cows, my last year’s milking herd.”