1 Dec., 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAT. 417 
strong piece, 2 inches by 2 inches, 4: feet long, ending in an eye 1} inches in 
diameter. This eye is held by a key at the lower end of a double-forked 
hook, hanging on both sides of the centre-piece of any dray. Such an 
arrangement allows the dray to turn very short. 
As to the platforms, they are 16 feet long by 8 feet wide. They are made 
of two bottom plates of hardwood, 3 inches by 4 inches, held together by six 
crosspieces, 2 inches by 3 inches. On these are nailed eight 6 by 1 inch boards. 
Two ropes (or clothes-lines), tied by their ends on the back of the platform, 
extend up to the dray under the load. These platforms being so low, they are, 
of course, very easy to load. The unloading is rendered still easier and 
quicker, thanks to the above two ropes. You standon the dray, throw the 
ropes backwards over the load; then with a horse (usually the front horse of 
the team) you pull off the load, which slides back out of the platform in less 
time than it takes to describe it. I dare say that that simple but practical 
device has taken the fancy of every farmer who has seen it at work. These 
platforms are certainly handier than the much-talked-of American wagons, 
although they do not cost as many shillings as the former cost. pounds. The 
fact that they can be used in conjunction with the dray allows full advantage 
to be taken of the horse’s strength, which is, as is well known, greater in the 
dray harness. Ours are made to carry 2 tons, but we usually put on only 
1 ton per load. They are used to carry any bulky stuff on the farm, such as 
hay, straw, wheat in sheayes or in bags, cornstalks, cowpeas, brush and fire 
wood, posts, &c. ' ; ; 
To return to our crop, the cobbing is done by boys in the yard, whilst men 
take the sheaves and stack them. 5 ie 
To build the stack inexpensively, it is better to fix in the ground a strong 
mast from 25 to 30 feet high, then to add a boom about 20 feet long, held by a 
steel rope at the proper degree of horizontality. Now take three pulleys (the 
larger their diameter, say, from 12 to 18 inches, the easier will be the lifting), fix 
one at the end of the boom, one at the other end close to the mast, and the third 
one at the bottom of the mast. Now, run over them a strong hemp rope, and 
get it pulled by a horse driven by a boy. In that way one man on the ground 
and another on the stack can doa considerable amount of work in a day. The 
sheaves can be seized by a pair of those specially made pinchers, called dogs; 
but for stacking all kinds of stuff, except hay, I prefer using rope slings. They 
hold the load better, and can be used to drag it either on the ground or on the 
stack. 
No doubt the hauling, stacking, and, later on, the chaffing of that 
cornstalk hay entail a good deal of labour and time. But both are well repaid 
by the value of the crop, the weight reaching up to 2 and 8 tons per acre. 
In regard to the cobs, the best way to save them, especially in this 
country, where corn is so liable to be attacked by weevils, is to stack them in a 
cornerib, These corncribs should be found on every farm. They should be 
inexpensive, well-ventilated buildings, and so made as to be easily filled and 
easily emptied. At the Queensland Agricultural College, Gatton, there is a 
very handy one, mostly built, I believe, by the students themselves. It is so 
arranged that the cart can pass through the building, the corn being stored 
overhead and on both sides.* On the Experiment Farm of Westbrook we 
had a much simpler affair, after the type of those used for the purpose in 
America and in some of the corn-growing countries of South-eastern Hurope. 
The posts are placed crosswise, dog-legged fashion, with their lower part 
well buried inthe ground. When the roof is put on, the space for the corn 
has a diamond-shape appearance. On the sides:are nailed battens which allow 
the air to permeate everywhere, although the corn is perfectly well protectod 
from rain. ‘Lhe storing space of that crib is 60 feet long and, if I remember 
rightly, 8 feet high by 11 feet wide, and can hold unhusked cobs enough to 
make eighty bags of threshed corn, or a little over 300 bushels. This, together 
* This corncrib has lately been altered to the form of an ordinary barn.—Ed. Q.A.J. 
