1 Mar., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 231 
Our illustration shows a blind boy working Messrs. Lacour Bros.’ straw 
bottle case machine ‘‘ Modéle 1897.” 
The straw is doubled over at the bottom and cut off at the top end of the 
envelope, and is made to tightly fit over the bottle for which it is required. It 
is tied securely at the neck and laced with jute or hemp twine at one or two 
places, according to the length of the bottle. 
The material considered best suited for the envelopes is hand-threshed 
rye straw. 
The machines are so simple in construction and easy of manipulation that 
any handy girl or boy ean work it. ; 
; A machine worked in a practical way can turn out 1,000 envelopes in a 
day of ten hours; when worked by steam power there should be five machines 
brought into operation, which, if worked for 800 days in the year, should easily 
turn out 1,500,000 envelopes. - 
Tt is on this quantity that the following statement is based :— 
1. Consumption of straw, 150,000 kilos (about 148 tons), 
of which 20 per cent. is waste, and is sold for chaff, 
bedding, and manure; at 5 marks (5s.) per 100 kilos, 
the cost of the straw amounts to M. 6,000... in SY) ®) 
2. Twine consumption—taking jute as the best and 
cheapest, 2,250 kilos are required at 56 pfennings per 
kilo oF ee bi ate SBA acy? hon aid. 63 0 
3. Consumption of wire for packing in bales... ne 6 0 
4, Labour wages: 8 girls (where 5 machines are used) 
at 1°20 M. (1 shillings per day), 9°60 M.; 1 man at 
2 M. (2 shillings) per day, 2°00 M.; or a total for 
oo 
300 days of M. 3,480... : a be: : 174 O O 
Taking the cost of the five machines, fittings, and — 
apparatus generally at £225, an allowance for 
depreciation of 10 per cent. annually must be madeof 22 10 0 
The total working expenses will thus amount to .. £565 10 0 
The rent of premises and sale of straw waste appear to about balance each 
other. So that to produce 1,500,000 envelopes the cost would reach about 
7s. 6d. per 1,000. 
The cost of production must, however, be modified by the locality, 
relative cost of materials, price of labour, rent of premises, and so on. 
The selling price varies in Germany from 6s. to 18s. per 1,000, according to 
the quality of the article; and this Jong range in price may be partly also 
accounted for by the mode of exportation adopted. 
Por instance, great glass bottle works, like those of Gerreshein, near 
Diisseldorf—which do an immense export business in glass bottles to England 
and Canada for wine and spirit merchants, brewers, distillers, and aerated water 
manufacturers—make the envelopes themselves; and as they can be used over 
and over again, freight is thus saved, whereas the manufacturers who export in 
bales will have high freight charges by reason of the bulk being so high in 
proportion to the weight. 
There are no published statistics as to the extent of the trade in Germany. 
The business would pay best in purely agricultural parts of the country, 
where materials and labour are cheaper than in the towns; and as it appears 
there is not much skill required in view of the small capital necessary, very 
useful employment might be afforded to destitute women and orphans in con- 
nection with charitable institutions, and it would also appear to be quite a 
legitimate branch of prison labour. 
Té will naturally strike the reader that the labour question would be a fatal 
stumbling-block to the introduction of the straw envelop business in Queens- 
Jand; butas in the case of millet-broom making, if is a trade which may be 
