‘176 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Mar., 1898. 
(Jura). The capital of this society is not fixed, but may be varied between 
£800, consisting of founders’ shares, and £4,000, the difference being made 
up of more shares or of bonds subscribed for by associates. 
A mill was purchased by the society at a cost of £560, and opened on the 
Ist December, 1894. The shareholders and associates undertake to have ground 
by the society all the grain required for domestic es and for their animals, 
but they are not allowed to trade in flour. The charge made by the society for 
threshing, winnowing, and milling the grain is about 62d. per cwt. of grain. The 
net profits at the end of the year are divided as follows:—20 per cent. is placed 
to the reserve fund, 5 per cent. goes to the shareholders, 25 per cent. to the 
employees, and 50 per cent. to such shareholders or associates as haye spent 
10 franes (8s. 4d.) at least in milling or other work. On the 1st November, 
1895, the number of members was 220, and some 30 ewt. of grain was being 
ground per day. Under the existing arrangements, each member receives back 
the flour made from his own grain, but it is hoped that, in the future, it may 
‘be possible to put all the corn into a common stock. 
Another society in the north of France has purchased a flour-mill with 
modern machinery at a cost of £6,000. In this case, the corn is purchased 
from the members at the current market prices, and the resulting flour is also 
‘sold at current prices, preferably to co-operative societies; 25 per cent. of the 
profits is divided amongst the shareholders, proportionately to the amount of 
corn delivered during the year; and a further 25 per cent. is divided amongst 
the co-operative and other bakeries which have affiliated themselves to the 
mill, in order to ensure a snfficient outlet for the flour. It is estimated that 
the 25 per cent. returned to the farmers is equivalent to an increase in the 
price of wheat from Is. 2d. to 1s. 8d. per quarter; and, in addition, the charges 
of the corn-dealer, who usually receives 5d, to 10d. per quarter, are eliminated. 
—Mackay Sugar Journal, : 
PRACTICE WITH SCIENCE. 
Lasr month it was stated that the sanitary contractors were busy depositing 
nightsoil in the Krisbane River, close to Messrs. Pettigrew’s sawmills. Other- 
wise the scene of deposit is in Moreton Bay. Are there no means of fertilising 
any of the lands near the mouth of the river, instead of making away with 
-a material which, properly applied, would be a valuable factor in the establish- 
ment of paying market gardens in the neighbourhood of the city? We might 
Jearn a lesson from the following account of the value of nightsoil given in the 
Mark Lane Rapress :— 
A SUCCESSFUL MOSS FARM. 
The newly published accounts of the Manchester Corporation Cleansing 
Department show that the Carrington Moss Farm, which was purchased ten 
years ago by the corporation for the purpose of utilising the nightsoil and other 
refuse of the city, has for the year ended 31st March, 1897, left a credit balance 
of £1,041 9s. 9d. The farm, which extends to some 1,100 acres, was at the time 
of purchase by the corporation a barren spongy moss, but since then it has 
been thoroughly drained, and has received over 50,000 tons per annum of night- 
soil and city refuse. The farm, so recently claimed from absolute sterility, is 
now in the very highest state of productive fertility, and carries crops equal 
in weight to the heaviest crops grown on the ‘red soil” at Dunbar. Indeed, 
the Carrington Moss Farm is now in such extremely high manurial condition 
that it can no longer be profitably used for utilising such enormous dressings 
of city refuse, and the Manchester Corporation have purchased Chat Moss, 
about 2,500 acres, which is all in course of being treated as the Carrington 
Moss has been. 
