1 Dec., 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAT. 419 
weevils and other pests. Should no bisulphide of carbon be procurable, there 
is a very simple substitute for it. Before soldering or puttying the tank 
airtight, put into it a burning candle. By its combustion the candle will use 
up in a few minutes all the oxygen of the tank and replace it by carbonic acid 
gas. The candle will die out, and the air in the tank will be unfit for any 
living being, including the dreaded weevils. 
Should, as it has been suggested, wheat elevators be built along our rail- 
way lines, then I hope that some part at least of those useful institutions 
will be reserved for storing also maize in tanks. Then the farmer, who cannot 
afford to procure tanks—and others, too—could have their market maize safely 
stored for a nominal charge, and the receipts delivered to them by the officer 
in charge of the elevator would be as good as gold with any grocer or banker 
in the land. 
In the past there have been great fluctuations of prices for corn, which we 
can roughly take to vary between 1s. and 6s. per bushel, according to the 
abundance or scarcity of the crop and other circumstances, too long to go into 
in this paper. JI have no hesitation in saying that a farmer should never sell 
his corn at 1s. per bushel. Whenever heis offered less than 2s., which is little 
enough too, let him answer straight that his pig is a better customer. Let the 
pig have the pleasure of eating the corn, and then walk it straight into one of 
of the now numerous bacon factories of Queensland; and, provided he is of a 
good breed, he will always get more than 2s. per bushel for the farmer’s corn. 
I would even go further and say: Let us use in our diet less meat, less 
flour, less groceries, and make a larger use of maize for ourselves and our 
families. Few people here have an idea of the extraordinary variety of dainty 
dishes which can be made of it, and what a healthy, nutritious food it is, too. 
We can already begin to use it when the kernels are yet in the milky stage or 
just beginning to condense. Break off the cobs, husk them clean, throw them 
into a pan of boiling water, boil for from twenty to thirty minutes, and serve hot. 
We grown-up people, who have some decorum to observe, rub off the 
seeds with a knife and mix them on a plate with some salt and fresh butter. 
But children, and especially boys, have a simple way of their own which might 
well, perhaps, be the best. They put the finely-powdered salt direct on the 
cob, see follows the butter, which melts gently in coming into contact with 
the yet hot seeds. Then. . . . with one end of the cob in each hand, those 
boys start their work, biting straight into the cob, which they keep moving 
horizontally to and fro as if they were playing the mouth-organ. And it takes 
them a long time before they are tired of playing! 
Maizemeal comes next. It has a great drawback. It does not keep well. 
Tt easily becomes bitter. Hence pellagra and other unpleasant diseases of the 
_ digestive organs complained of recently in this Journal by the editor himself. 
But now millers prepare it in towns nearly daily according to the demand, 
and for those who live in the country there is now cheap hand-mills, by means 
of which the quantity required by the family for, say, a week can be easily 
and cheaply prepared. 
When thus fresh, the maizemeal can be used to make innumerable dishes. 
Amongst many other medical authorities, [ have it from Dr. Fisher, one of the 
medical advisers of the combined friendly societies in Brisbane, that it is one of 
the best and healthiest of foods. The citizens of the United States of America 
are the greatest maize-eaters in the world. It could hardly be said that they 
are in any way a degenerated race. Has not the last war proved them to be 
for endurance and resistance to disease and fatigue equal to any other nation 
in the world? 
I wish I could quote here some of the numerous recipes in use in my 
house, or contained in the writings of Professor Shelton or Dr. Cobb on the 
subject. The latter has, in the Wew South Wales Farmers’ Guide, an admirable 
page on popping corn, a page which should be learnt by heart by every child in 
the colony. ‘There are, of course, various ways of popping corn. It is first 
done by exposing on a fire the kernels placed in a hopper made of wire-netting 
