Methods of Economizinrj Labour. 
125 
put on elliptical steel springs, which are sometimes reinforced by a 
lump of India rubber secured in the centre. If the waggon is 
not provided with springs, at all events the driver takes good 
care to have them beneath his seat. The kind of spring most 
commonly used in the lighter vehicles throughout the country, in 
the stage-coaches, vans, and the New England buggies, is the 
"pole and thorough brace,*' consisting of a tough elastic ash or 
hickory pole, rigid at one end with the framework or bed of the 
carriage, and a stout leather thong extending from the other 
extremity of the pole to a hook in tJie bed or framework. This 
thong takes the weight of the body of the carriage, and thus forms 
the strongest and best spring for rough roads, as has been 
abundantly proved in our Australian gohl colonies, where steel 
spi'ings have been found worthless for rapid motion ; and carriages 
hung on these leather thongs now convey the fortunate diggers 
over the rough lava-strewn plains at a pace that might astonish 
even the veterans of the English mail-coaches. 
I am quite aware to what an amount of criticism 1 expose my- 
self by venturing to say a word in justification of ttie use of 
waggons, now that their cause has been by a high authority in 
England formally put out of court. I do maintain, nevertheless, 
that the light American waggons may be used with advantage on 
roads that would be impracticable I'or our carts, and more par- 
ticularly in hilly districts. The same simplicity or rudeness 
(as the reader pleases) which has marked all the operations 
hitherto reviewed, characterizes the transport of the grain from 
first to last. Let us suppose that it has been grown in far- 
off Illinois, 1000 miles west of New York, — how does it reach 
the consumer there? It never comes in contact with a sack, 
but is dealt with altogether in bulk. Conveyed loose in the 
waggon-box (which is made of tongued and grooved boards 
slipped into the frame) to the nearest railway or boat, it is there 
measured off as it is poured into the grain-car or the hold — a 
receipt taken and forwarded to the consignee at Chicago ; there it 
is either poured straight into some schooner or steamer's hold, or, 
if required to be stored, hoisted by an " elevator " to the bin of 
some tall warehouse, whence it is shot into the vessel's hold just 
as fast as it can be measured in the transit. These operations 
are performed with so little noise or bustle that you are hardly 
aware that anything is going on, and the despatch is such that a 
schooner laden with 12,000 bushels of grain will discharge it all 
by means of elevators in half a day. The cost of the passage of 
grain through a warehouse, or " handling " as it is termed, 
together with storage for a reasonable time, is only \\ cents 
or three farthings a bushel, and this charge leaves a very hand- 
some profit. But we have not yet got our grain to New Yo:k. 
