GRAIN COMBINED WITH EFFICIENCY. 135 



carrying out of this principle ensures that the premonitory 

 symptoms of dissohition will be discovered and failings rectified 

 before the whole culminates in a breakdow^n. The proprietors 

 of these travelling mills may safely calculate that, as long as 

 they are enabled to maintain the high-class of machinery that is 

 engaged in tliis work in Ayrshire at present, combined with the 

 services of two efficient employees for the sum of £2 per diem, 

 their efforts will meet with appreciation. On their behalf it 

 might here be represented that as their working expenses must 

 be very heavy, viz., tolls, wages, oil, waste, belting, packing, 

 rivets, and occasionally a considerable outlay may be necessitated 

 to meet the requirements of the law, &c., that the transaction ought 

 essentially to be a cash one. However, a change from one custom 

 to another may require a few minor alterations, before its benefits 

 can be fully taken advantage of ; for instance, how often do w^e see 

 valuable time lost in unsuccessful attempts to drive ponderous 

 engines into soft fields, or other totally unsuitable situations, with 

 the ostensible purpose of gaining proximity to stacks erected 

 there. Such a high pressure of steam is sometimes required to 

 extricate them, that that point is passed where safety ends, and 

 consequently danger begins, before attention is directed to the 

 matter. P'xpensive machinery is thereby subjected to an 

 enormous strain, and future discoveries will clearly demonstrate 

 the folly of these proceedings. Again, if the mill be set to work 

 on some advantageous spot, and *' carting in " have to be resorted 

 to, this is still unsatisfactory, as many horses become restive and 

 impatient, the liability of risk from accident is increased greatly. 



Extra workmen are required (which means increased cost), a 

 further handling of the sheaves is necessitated, and a propor- 

 tionate loss in fTfrain therebv sustained. To avoid this, and cret a 

 proper starting-point for operations, it is imperative that the 

 stackyard be ])roperly macadamised with stones, ashes, gravel, 

 or other hard substance, and so made impervious to the j^ressure 

 caused bv the evolutions of the traction en-'ine ; the benefits 

 accruing from tliis arrangement at various seasons are so 

 numerous as to amply repay the outlay. 



Great care must be taken to obtain a passage for surface 

 water, so that it may be prevented from saturating the st.'\ck 

 bottoms ; then assuming that those conditions have been satisfied, 

 and that the entin? wht'at crop on the farm is to be stacked with 

 a view to economical threshing, erect six pegs in a straight line, 

 sixteen feet apart, and paralUd to them other six pegs at the 

 same distance a])art so as to leave twenty-seven feet of ch-ar 

 space in the centre ; tliese pegs must be put to the scjuare, for 

 the least angle will place the forkcr at a decided disadvantage, 

 describe a circle thirteen feet diameter round each peg, and till 

 in with sufticient straw onlv. Jtaisc each stack to tlie heijiht of 



