338 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Ocr., 1899. 
the farmer to make such provision for additional assistance as will meet this 
contingency. Generally speaking, the most useful class of hands for this work 
will be boys of from 14 years upwards, as they are usually more active than 
older persons, and, the work being light and demanding deftness more than 
hard effort, it is more eh to this class of labour. In this matter of finding 
a sufficient supply of hands at the critical period of harvesting lies, to a great 
extent, as far as our remote rural districts are concerned, the problem as to 
whether this industry can be carried out on a paying scale on a large area. 
Many American planters grow areas amounting to 300 acres ; this in most of our 
country districts would involve the farmer in difficulties with regard to obtaining 
sufficient assistance to cope with the work. ‘Thus it remains with the farmer, 
when forecasting his operations, to give this feature a very careful consideration. 
However, judging by our experience in cotton-growing times 35 years ago, it 
may not be impossible to again entice our unemployed town lads to engage 
temporarily in a rural occupation to their own and to the farmers’ mutual 
advantage. Of course, where the farmer contemplates the cultivation of small 
areas the problem of sufficient labour will most probably be satisfactorily solved 
by the farmer enlisting the assistance of his neighbours and returning the 
compliment as occasion demands. 
At the very outset of cutting operations, the grower is confronted with the 
problem as to what is profitable to cut and what to discard. In most seasons 
there will be a proportion of stalks that carry only thin, dwarfed broom-heads, 
which in themselves are too light to be profitably handled, unless the farmer has 
cheap and abundant labour. It is hardly possible to lay down a fixed rule asx to 
what inferior tops to cut or reject. It will very materially depend upon demand 
and price. My own practice is to discard rather than err on the side of 
harvesting inferior heads. When the trouble of cutting, handling, stripping, 
sorting, and baling is taken into account, and the meagre return in weight 
resulting from dwarfed heads, it is possibly better to convert your small tops 
into stock or poultry food, as the seed is more often the most valuable part of 
the rejected heads. I simply point this out so that the grower may avoid 
having a lot of small corn on hand that would have been more profitably left 
alone. In the making of millet brooms, it is very necessary that corn of 
various lengths be supplied. As a rough guide to marketable broom-heads, it 
may be taken that any that show 6 inches of fair brush will be about the 
minimum of useful heads. ‘From this the fibre ranges to as much as 2 fect 6 — 
inches in length, which is rather over the length best adapted for ordinary 
broom manutacture, inasmuch as an excessive length means cutting to waste. 
Generally speaking, the average of the best brooms locally made runs to about 
20 inches. Thus fibre approximating this standard will, in the commercial 
sense, be most Paes Discrimination must be used when cutting short or long 
heads. When handling short tops, it is necessary to lop off at a little further 
distance from the commencement of the fibre, leaving a stalk about 6 to 8 
inches long, while with the longer heads a shorter stalk will do—say from 4 to 
6 inches as arule. I have often observed farmers commit the error of cutting 
the stalk quite close to the fibre. This practice is a wrong one, as it results in 
a loss of weight, and is sometimes a disadvantage to the broom-maker if the 
fibre is required for certain parts in building the broom. With the 
preceding suggestions borne in mind, active operations may begin. For the 
purpose of cutting off the heads, a good, strong, table carving or butcher's 
knife is as good an implement as can be used. Thus equipped, start 
the cutters operating between two rows, each cutter depositing the tops so as to 
have as many rows in one as convenient, placing the tops in regular order il 
small heaps, care being observed that tops and butts are laid one way. ‘This plan 
greatly hastens operations. Too much attention cannot be paid this practice, 
as in drying and stripping, if butts and tops are kept in proper order, the 
handling and sorting are very much simplified. When it, is considered that in 
harvesting one acre of this crop, at a reasonable computation, 25,000 broom- 
heads will have to be cut, some idea of the celerity needful to profitably handle 
