Australian scientists, sugar cane growers and the search for new gummosis-resistant and sucrose-rich varieties of sugar cane, 1890-1920

Historical Records of Australian Science

Volumn 14, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 291-311

  Griggs, Peter ^a  

^a JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

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EID: 77953893762     PISSN: 07273061     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1071/HR03002     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. Peter Griggs, 'Rust disease outbreaks and their impact on the Queensland sugar industry, 1870-1880', Agricultural History, 69(3) (1995), pp. 413-437.
2. Angus Mackay, The Sugar Cane in Australia (Town and Country Journal, Sydney, 1883), p. 36;
3. X H. Tryon, Gumming of Cane (Queensland Government Printer, Brisbane, 1895), p. 24.
4. Gummosis outbreaks occurred in the following districts: northern NSW (1893-1899); Bundaberg and Maryborough (1894-1896); Childers (1898-1899 and 1908-1912); Mackay (1898-1904) and the Herbert River (1903-1908).
5. Tryon, Gumming of Cane, pp. 9-12;
6. X D. North, The Gumming Disease of the Sugar Cane: its Dissemination and Control, CSR Agricultural Technical Report No.10 (Sydney, 1935), p. 13.
7. Tryon, Gumming of Cane, pp. 50-52;
8. X P. Griggs, 'Improving agricultural practices: science and the Australian cane grower, 1864-1915', Agricultural History, 77(2) (2003), in press.
9. Kay Saunders, Workers in Bondage: the Origins and Bases of Unfree Labour in Queensland, 1824-1916 (University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1982);
10. X R. Shlomowitz, 'The search for institutional equilibrium in Queensland's sugar industry, 1884-1913', Australian Economic History Review, 19 (1979), pp. 91-123.
11. Peter Mylrea, In Service of Agriculture: a Centennial History of the New South Wales Department of Agriculture 1890-1990 (NSW Agriculture and Fisheries, Sydney, 1990);
12. P. Skerman, A. Fisher and P. Lloyd, Guiding Queensland Agriculture 1887-1987 (Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Brisbane, 1988), pp. 33, 55;
13. X A. Graves, Cane and Labour: The Political Economy of the Queensland Sugar Industry (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1993), p. 59;
14. X H. Easterby, The Queensland Sugar Industry (Queensland Government Printer, Brisbane, 1932), pp. 205-206;
15. X C. G. Hughes, 'The introduction of Badila into Queensland', Cane Growers' Quarterly Bulletin, 11(2) (1947), pp. 97-101.
16. Discussed in Noel Deerr, Sugar and the Sugar Cane (Norman Rodger, Manchester, 1905), p. 13.
17. Calculated from export figures in Statistics of the Colony of Queensland 1895, p. 61.
18. In 1885, the Queensland Government legislated that the recruitment of Melanesians to the colony would cease after 31 December 1890 and the employment of Melanesians in the sugar industry would cease after 1893. Thereafter the industry was to rely on European labour only. This arrangement, however, ceased in February 1892 when the Queensland Government allowed the resumption of Melanesian recruitment for the Queensland sugar industry, but under much stricter safeguards. However, during the 1890s the costs of importing indentured Melanesians rose sharply, making them no longer cheap workers. For a full discussion see Graves, Cane and Labour, pp. 62-63.
19. Mylrea, In Service of Agriculture, p. 11;
20. The Sugar Journal and Tropical Cultivator [hereafter SJTC], 15 October 1894, p. 202.
21. Staff Register, Officers Service Series 1 1852-1891, Colonial Sugar Refining Company Records [hereafter CSRR] Z/109, Box 306, Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University, p. 19.
22. Gregory Logan, 'Tryon, Henry 1856-1943', Australian Dictionary of Biography, 12 (1990), 272-273;
23. X Evidence of H. Tyron in A. Piddington, N. Lockyer and S. Mills, Report of the Royal Commission on the Sugar Industry Together with Evidence (1920) p. 512 (located in CSRR Z/109, Box 45).
24. 'Executive Council Minute 96/70: two months leave to E. Cowley', Dr C. Albert Koch, Cairns, Medical Certificate for E. Cowley, 19 January 1899, Queensland State Archives [hereafter QSA] A/75328.
25. Easterby, The Queensland Sugar Industry, p. 199.
26. Easterby, The Queensland Sugar Industry. Ibid., p. vi.
27. For a full discussion about CSR's scientific strategy see G. Bindon and D. Miller, 'Sweetness and light: industrial research in the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, 1855-1900', in Australian Science in the Making, ed. R. W. Home (Cambridge University Press in association with Australian Academy of Science, Melbourne, 1988), pp. 170-194.
28. Edward William Knox was appointed Superintendent of CSR's Northern River Mills in 1869 at the age of twenty-one. During the next decade he gained valuable experience in the field of sugar manufacture. He visited the West Indies in 1876, witnessing the advances in sugar technology in the West Indian factories. Knox assumed the post of CSR General Manager in 1880, and held it until 1920. Under his guidance, innovation and scientific experimentation became a sustained concern of the company's management. For Knox's views on the application of chemical control to a manufacturing business see his paper 'Chemical knowledge applied to sugar producing in Queensland', The Sugar Cane, 22 (1890), pp. 212-215.
29. E. Knox to all Mill Managers, 15 August 1894, CSRR 142/1711, p. 266.
30. Staff Register, Officers Service Series 1 1891-1911, CSRR Z/109, Box 306, pp. 60, 335; E. Knox to J. Robertson, Nausori Mill, Fiji, 28 January 1891, CSRR 142/728, p. 461; X K. Earle, 'John Hastings Reed - first CSR manager of Hambledon Mill', Bulletin Cairns Historical Society, 414 (1995).
31. Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers, (1913, vol. 4), p. 795, Question 22218.
32. Queensland Acclimatisation Society [hereafter QAS], Minute Book, entry for 14 October 1895, OM 66-24/5, John Oxley Library, Brisbane.
33. QAS, Minute Book, entry for 30 March 1909, OM 66-24/7.
34. Jock Galloway, 'Botany in the service of Empire: the Barbados cane-breeding program and the revival of the Caribbean sugar industry, 1880s-1930s', Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 86(4) (1996), pp. 682-706;
35. X F. Blackburn, Sugar-Cane (Longman Group Ltd, London, 1984), p. 105.
36. X A. C. Barnes, Agriculture of the Sugar-Cane (Leonard Hill Ltd, London, 1953), p. 95.
37. D. Buchanan to P. McLean, 15 May 1890, QSA AGS/N72; Harwood Mill Manager to E. Knox, 12 October 1893 and Harwood Mill Manager to E. Knox, 26 February 1895, CSRR 142/1787, pp. 79, 690-691.
38. D. Norris, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to Thomas Archer, Queensland Agent General, London, 7 October 1890, QSA AGS/N94.
39. E. Cowley, 'Report on economic plant collecting trip to British New Guinea, 17 January 1893', QSA AGS/1;
40. X C. G. Hughes, 'The introduction of Badila into Queensland', Cane Growers' Quarterly Bulletin, 11(2) (1947), pp. 97-100.
41. NSW Department of Agriculture, Sydney, to Queensland Department of Agriculture, Brisbane, 11 November 1892 and 25 January 1895, QSA AGS/1.
42. Australian Town and Country Journal, 18 September 1897, p. 31;
43. Australian Town and Country Journal, 18 September 1897, p. 31;
44. Australian Town and Country Journal, 18 September 1897, p. 31; ; Harwood Mill Manager to Knox, 13 November 1894, CSRR 142/1787, p. 592; SJTC, 15 August 1895, p. 174.
45. For CSR being supplied with imported cane varieties see Cowley to P. McLean, 14 June 1893, QSA AGS/1, and 'Evidence of Henry Tryon' in Piddington, Lockyer and Mills, Report of the Royal Commission on the Sugar Industry Together with Evidence, pp. 512-514;
46. X C. G. Hughes, 'Farewell nineteen hundred' X C. G. Hughes, 'Farewell nineteen hundred', Cane Growers' Quarterly Bulletin, 21(4) (1958), p. 116; X E. Knox to Childers Mill Manager, 9 November 1901, CSRR 142/1423, p. 471.
47. Jock Galloway, The Sugar Cane Industry: an Historical Geography from Its Origins to 1914 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989), p. 11.
48. The Queenslander, 19 October 1895, p. 756.
49. Galloway, 'Botany in the service of Empire, pp. 692-693;
50. A. North-Coombes, A History of Sugar Production in Mauritius, 1639-1937 (1937; second edition: Mauritius Printing Specialists, Mauritius, 1993), pp. 25-26.
51. The POCS or CCS formula is defined as: 'that percentage by weight of a quantity of cane which would be recovered as pure sucrose if milling and refining operations conducted at a prescribed standard of efficiency' (Blackburn, Sugar-Cane, pp. 359-360). The prescribed standard of efficiency is such that for every kilogram of soluble impurities in the cane, half a kilogram of sucrose is lost in the process, there being no other losses of sucrose. For additional details see A. G. Lowndes (ed.), South Pacific Enterprise: The Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited (Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1956), Appendix 23, pp. 452-453.
52. 'Annual Report of Overseer Mackay State Nursery [hereafter ARM], 1894-1895', Queensland Votes and Proceedings [hereafter QVP], (1895, vol. 3), p. 1041; Cowley to McLean, 16 May 1894 and Cowley to McLean, 28 September 1894, QSA AGS/70; Australian Tropiculturist, 23 December 1895, p. 347.
53. 'ARM, 1894-1895' and 'Annual Report of Overseer Kamerunga State Nursery [hereafter ARK], 1894-1895', QVP, (1895, vol. 3), pp. 1041, 1043; 'ARK, 1895-1896', QVP, (1896, vol. 4), p. 474.
54. The Queenslander, 10 October 1896, p. 707.
55. 'Annual Report of the Queensland Department of Agriculture [hereafter ARAQ], 1894-1895', QVP, (1895, vol. 3), p. 1025.
56. 'ARAQ, 1894-1895', QVP, 3 (1895), p. 1025; CSR Brisbane to McLean, 6 January 1896, QSA AGS/70; Queensland Agricultural Journal, 1 (1897), 402; D. Buchanan to McLean, 8 March 1898, QSA AGS/N94, Brisbane.
57. 'ARAQ, 1895-1896', QVP, (1896, vol. 4), p. 449; 'ARK, 1896-1897', QVP, (1897, vol. 4), p. 931.
58. 'ARM, 1896-1897', QVP, (1897, vol. 4), 928; 'ARM, 1897-1898', QVP, (1898, vol. 3), 1069.
59. SJTC, 15 November 1895, pp. 268-269; 'New varieties of sugar cane at the Richmond River experiment farms', Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 9(8) (1898), pp. 886-893; X H. Jackson, 'Wollongbar sugarcane experiments,' Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 9(11) (1898), pp. 1289-1295.
60. Condong Mill Manager to Knox, 31 May 1904, CSRR 142/1210, Letter No. 179; CSR, 'Planting circular Broadwater Mill, 1911', CSRR 142/878; Australian Sugar Journal [hereafter ASJ], 2 July 1914, p. 275.
61. Harwood Mill Manager to Knox, 17 August 1894, CSRR 142/1787, pp. 449-450; Knox to Harwood Mill Manager, 6 January 1900, CSRR 142/1716, p. 397.
62. For further details see Knox to Homebush Mill Manager, 2 November 1901, CSRR 142/1238, p. 116.
63. 'Annual Report of the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations [hereafter ARBSES], 1905', Queensland Parliamentary Papers [hereafter QPP], (1906, vol. 2), p. 332; 'ARBSES, 1908', QPP, (1909, vol. 2), 529; J. Clark, 'Interim report on cane varieties at Hambledon Mill Cane Nursery, October 1900', CSRR Z/395, Box 45; W. Farquhar, Mill Inspector, to Goondi Mill Manager, 16 September 1904, CSRR N126/149; G. Kottman, 'Chemical report on the 1909 season', CSRR Z/109, Box 377, p. 95.
64. 'Annual Report, Mackay Sugar Experiment Station, 1899-1900', QVP, (1900, vol. 2), p. 758.
65. 'ARBSES, 1905', QPP, (1906, vol. 2), p. 332.
66. Franklin Earle, Sugar Cane and Its Culture (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1928), pp. 42-43;
67. X N. King, R. Mungomery and C. Hughes, Manual of Cane-Growing (Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1953), pp. 243-244;
68. Tryon 'Evidence', p. 514.
69. 'Report on Hambledon Mill: 1902 season', CSRR Z109/195, p.12; W. Farquhar, Mill Inspector, to E. Knox, Sydney, 8 September 1904, CSRR 142/2894, p. 242; X Tryon 'Evidence', p. 514.
70. 'ARBSES, 1907', QPP, (1908, vol. 3), pp. 253-254; Cairns Post, 19 February 1904, p. 5.
71. W. Farquhar, Mill Inspector, to Goondi Mill Manager, 16 September 1904, CSRR N126/149; G. Kottman, 'Chemical report on the 1909 season', CSRR Z/109, Box 377, p. 95.
72. ARBSES, 1905, p. 332; 'ARBSES, 1908', QPP, (1909, vol. 2), p. 529.
73. 'Report on season's work at Childers Mill: 1907', CSRR 142/1408, Letter No. 205A.
74. SJTC, 15 May 1904, p. 227; Knox to Harwood Mill Manager, 22 September 1905, CSRR 142/1721, p. 482.
75. Broadwater Mill Manager to Knox, August 1908, CSRR 142/876, p. 474; 'Planting circular, Broadwater Mill, 1910', CSRR 142/877, pp. 412-143; X 'Planting circular, Harwood Mill, 1914', CSRR 142/1727, pp. 150-151; X H. Easterby, 'Varieties of sugar cane in Queensland', BSES General Series Bulletin No.2 (revised 2nd edition, 1926), p. 21.
76. Hambledon Mill Cane Nursery to G. Kottman, 7 November 1906, CSRR 142/909, p. 344; Homebush Mill Manager to Knox, Sydney, 17 September 1906, CSRR 142/1255, Letter No. 458; 'ARBSES, 1909-1910', QPP, (1910, vol. 3), p. 345.
77. 'Planting circular to Victoria Mill canegrowers, 7 February 1907', CSRR Z/395, Box 78; X C. G. Hughes, 'Farewell nineteen hundred', Cane Growers' Quarterly Bulletin, 21(4) (1958), pp. 116-117;
78. X Easterby, Varieties of sugar cane in Queensland, p. 25.
79. Knox to Childers Mill Manager, 7 February 1899, CSRR 142/1422, p. 18.
80. Earle, Sugar Cane and Its Culture, p. 76.
81. Hambledon Mill Cane Nursery, 'Report on variety trials, 1906', CSRR 142 /909, p. 432; X Condong Mill Manager, 'Notes on cane varieties, 30 May 1905', CSRR 142/1213.
82. 'Annual Report QAS, 1900-1901', p. 17; QAS, Minute Book OM 66-24/5, entries for 14 October 1895, 10 November 1896 and 12 April 1898, and Minute Book OM 66-24 /6, entries for 9 October 1903, 13 May 1904 and 7 December 1906, JOL.
83. The Queenslander, 24 October 1896, p. 773; 23 July 1898, p. 184; 29 October 1904, p. 35; and Queensland Agricultural Journal, 14 (1904), p. 361.
84. Earle, Sugar Cane and Its Culture, p. 44;
85. X King, Mungomery and Hughes, Manual of Cane-Growing, p. 244;
86. Macknade Mill Cane Nursery, 'Annual cultivation report for 1904', CSRR 142/2766, p. 297; Macknade Mill Cane Nursery to E. Knox, 29 June 1905, CSRR Z/395, Box 46.
87. G. Kottman, 'General report on cane season, 1897', CSRR Z/109, Box 376, p. 19;
88. X Deerr, Sugar and the Sugar Cane, pp. 14, 22;
89. X Easterby, Varieties of sugar cane in Queensland, p. 19; SJTC, 15 October 1895, p. 202.
90. Knox to Broadwater Mill Manager, 22 March 1895, CSRR 142/822, p. 30; Knox to Broadwater Mill Manager, 14 June 1895, CSRR 142/822, p. 176.
91. For an example see 'Circular to cane contractors, Victoria Mill, 7 February 1907', CSRR Z/395, Box 78.
92. 'Circular to all mills - yellow stripe disease, 15 January 1913', CSRR Z/395, Box 78.
93. 'ARBSES, 1912', QPP, (1913, vol. 2), p. 587; 'ARBSES, 1914-1915', QPP, (1915-1916, vol. 2), p. 1130; John Kerr, Northern Outpost (Mossman Central Mill Company Ltd, Mossman, 1995), pp. 97, 131.
94. J. Wright, 'Badila in the Burdekin', Cane Growers' Quarterly Bulletin, 31(2) (July 1967), p. 71.
95. Easterby, 'Varieties of sugar cane in Queensland', p. 19; Homebush Mill Manager to Knox, 13 February 1904, CSRR 142/1254, Letter No. 146; John Kerr, Top Mill in the Valley: Cattle Creek Sugar Mill, Finch Hatton, 1906-1990 (Mackay Sugar Co-operative Association Ltd, Mackay, 1991), pp. 24-25.
96. John Kerr, A Century of Sugar: Racecourse Sugar Mill, Mackay (Mackay Sugar Co-operative Association Ltd, Mackay, 1988), p. 69; X ASJ, 9 April 1914, p. 30.
97. Kerr, A Century of Sugar, p. 164; Queensland Government Gazette, 107 (1916), pp. 439-445.
98. 'Circular to Canegrowers at Childers, October 1914', CSRR 142/1436, p. 189; ASJ, 3 February 1914, p. 626.
99. C. Hughes, 'The Varietal Revolution in Southern Queensland,' Cane Growers' Quarterly Bulletin, 10(1) (July 1946), p. 20.
100. Evidence of H. Young in Piddington, Lockyer and Mills, Report of the Royal Commission on the Sugar Industry Together with Evidence, p. 468.
101. SJTC, 15 July 1901, p. 8; 15 September 1902, p. 49; 15 May 1904, p. 227; and 15 October 1904, p. 55.
102. North, The Gumming Disease of the Sugar Cane, pp. 11-13.
103. W. Rothe to Condong Mill Manager, 28 August 1886, CSRR 142/1146, p. 353.
104. Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers, (1913, vol. 4), 902, Question 24744; Mulgrave Central Mill Company Ltd, Fifty Years in Retrospect 1895-1945 (Mulgrave Central Mill Company Ltd, Gordonvale, 1947), p. 11.
105. Easterby H. and G. Patten, 'Summary of some experiments conducted with sugar cane and of soil and other chemical analyses from 1902 to 1923', BSES General Series Bulletin No.4 (1924), pp. 28-30;
106. X J. Dixon, 'Sugar milling by CSR,' in South Pacific Enterprise: The Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited, ed. A. G. Lowndes (Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1956), pp. 128-129.
107. Refer to varietal statistics in Australian Sugar Yearbooks during the 1950s.