As over 90 per cent of Australia’s sugar crop comes from Queensland, this article will deal with the growth and condition of the industry in that state only. Queensland has an area of 668,497 square miles, of which 920,010 acres were under cultivation in 1913; of this, 147,743 acres were planted with sugar cane. [Illustration: CUTTING CANE, MAROOCHY RIVER, SOUTH QUEENSLAND] [Illustration: CARTING CANE TO MILL, INGHAM DISTRICT, NORTH QUEENSLAND] About one-half of Queensland lies in the tropics and the remaining area stretches southward to the twenty-ninth parallel. The temperature is affected in a marked degree by the breezes that blow steadily from the sea and moderate what otherwise would be excessive heat. It is warmer along the coast than in the uplands of the interior, and in the northern part the heat is very trying to people who have come from temperate climes. At Rockhampton the winter temperature averages 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and in summer the mean is nearly 85 degrees. The annual rainfall on the seacoast is large, particularly in the north, where it ranges between 60 and 70 inches. At Brisbane it is about 47 inches, while a large part of the interior receives from 20 to 30 inches, but it falls below 20 inches in the west and south. There are no active volcanoes in Australia and no violent earthquakes have occurred in recent years. The sugar plantations of Queensland are found in a strip of territory running along the eastern coast between the sixteenth parallel and the southern border. This stretch of land has been divided into three districts, the southern, the central and the northern, the last being the most important, as it furnishes over 60 per cent of the total sugar production of the state. The cane lands are of two kinds—scrub land and forest land. The scrub lands may be divided into two classes, _true scrub_ and _bastard scrub_, the former being characterized by a dense, almost impenetrable vine growth and timber of soft wood. In the bastard scrub there are both hard and soft woods, the former predominating, and very little vine growth is met with. The soil of true scrub lands is of two kinds, alluvial and volcanic. The alluvial soil is composed of clay, fine sand, gravel and vegetable and mineral matter brought from the high levels by water action. The soil of forest lands is diversified and, for sugar-cane culture, “blady grassed” bloodwood country with a porous subsoil is selected. Here the yield of cane per acre is not so heavy as on scrub lands, but the sugar content of the juice is greater.