agriculture

The first single-cylinder Marshall tractor to be introduced was the Marshall 15/30 in 1930. It had an 8-inch (200 mm) bore with a 10-inch (250 mm) stroke (= 8.237 liters) and the maximum speed was 550 r.p.m., or 9.1666 revolutions per second. In 1932 the 15/30 was upgraded to become the Marshall 18/30. This model featured the same bore and stroke dimensions but the maximum r.p.m. was increased and the tractor's transmission was heavily modified. The Field-Marshall tractors were commonly used to pull agricultural machinery such as threshing machines from site to site. Once in place, the Field-Marshall would be used as the powerplant for the threshing machine, the tractor's belt pulley coupled by a large flat drive belt to the threshing machine's pulley. Field-Marshalls with tracks were produced under the Fowler brand name, being converted in the Fowler factory at Leeds. The first was designated the "Fowler VF", later ones were "VFA"s. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_Marshall#:~:text=The%20first%...

trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/164287965# - this pic appeared in a photographic montage in the Sydney Mail on 7th December, 1910. trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/165395904 - a very similar pic...taken on the same occasion...appeared in the Sydney Mail on 15th April, 1908...the location appears to have been Haywood brothers' farm, 'Oaklands', near Pambula, on the NSW South coast.

Bananas are Australia’s largest horticultural industry and its bestselling supermarket item. Over ninety percent of Australia’s banana crop is produced in North Queensland. Banana plants were introduced to Australia in the early to mid-nineteenth century, with the first recorded cultivation taking place in Western Australia. At this point, Australia did not produce a commercial crop, with bananas intended for sale being imported from Fiji. Banana plants were probably first introduced to North Queensland in the 1870s by Chinese immigrants and Polynesians employed in the sugar industry. During the 1880s, Chinese immigrants began to cultivate fruit crops (including bananas) in the areas around Port Douglas, Cooktown, Cairns, and Innisfail. They became not only a regional success but a national one, with the Chinese community remaining the dominant force in Australia’s banana trade (both cultivation and importation) until the 1930s. The reasons for the Chinese community’s decline in influence after this point were multi-faceted, although discriminatory policies played a significant role. Shortly after federation, the Commonwealth Government passed the Immigration Restriction Act (1901), limiting ‘non-white’ immigration. Serving as the basis for the White Australia Policy, it particularly targeted Asian (especially Chinese) immigrants. Allowing immigration officers to administer a dictation test to prospective migrants in any European language (or, after 1905, any prescribed language), it facilitated indirect exclusion on racial grounds. The Queensland government also introduced legislation restricting the participation of non-European individuals in banana and sugarcane cultivation. In the tradition of the Immigration Restriction Act (1901), Queensland’s Banana Industry Preservation Act (1921) required ‘coloured’ labourers to pass a dictation test. North Queensland’s banana industry was also impacted by the return of older banana growers to China, a shift towards sugarcane cultivation among younger growers, and the difficulties posed by a combination of fruit fly contamination, cyclones, competition from Fijian imports, and transportation difficulties. The First World War had an especially devastating impact, with wartime shipping restrictions coinciding with disease outbreaks. The twentieth century was also defined by constant efforts to control the spread of bunchy top disease, an incurable viral infection, which prevents banana plants from producing fruit. (Thankfully, bunchy top has been prevented from gaining a foothold in North Queensland.) Nevertheless, banana growing only came back into its own in North Queensland following the Second World War. Source: queenslandhistory.org/2019/10/from-the-archives-early-ban...