1 Jury, 1902. | QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 15 
income of farmers in all parts of the country, standing days at a time. exposed to the 
wet weather and losing value, simply because grain in bags cannot be handled 
fast enough to prevent a glut in the metropolitan or other central market; 
when I see valuable property, such as railway trucks, standing idle day by 
day, letting interest on the people’s money go to waste, because these trucks 
cannot be loaded with bags of wheat quickly and despatched to their destina- 
tion; when I see thousands of bushels of uncovered bags of wheat caught in 
a shower; when I see the wheat, after several hundred miles railway journey 
unbagged, and put into fresh bags before transhipping, because the original bags are 
worn out; when I see them again lifted, and lifted, and lifted slowly into the ship's 
hold; finally, when I lean back with a shudder and try to imagine the high old time 
the ship’s rats and the weevils have among this honeycomb ot age of wheat—a picnic 
lasting, it may be, several months--until the grain is at last unloaded in London, and 
shot into an elevator—when I see all these things, I cannot find words powerful enough 
to stigmatise this universal use of bags. Because this thing is wrong in principle, and 
can be remedied. The secret of the remedy—no, it is no secret; it is fairly written 
against the sky in scores of the greatest and most prosperous towns in America and 
Europe. Not the secret, then, but.the principle of the remedy is this: Threshed 
grain can, ina large measure, be handled like water. It will run, it can be poured, it 
can be pumped ; and if only our farmers, merchants, and railway architects will take 
pains to consider this simple idea, the result will be a change in our methods of 
handling grain, beginning in the field and ending in the mill. What would you think 
of a man who lifted all the water out of his wellin a bucket instead of with a pump? 
What would you think of a man who lifted all the water out over the edge of a tank 
instead of letting it run out through the faucet at the bottom? What would you 
think of a man who habitually carried water downhill instead of letting itrun through 
a spout! What would you think of a man who, having 400 gallons of water to 
transport, put it into 400 one-gallon receptacles instead of into one 400-gallon_ tank ? 
What would you think of a man who caught his roof water in an underground tank, 
so as to have the pleasure of pumping it up again when he wanted it for use? What 
would you think of a man who preferred to store his water in a way that not only 
allowed but actually invited various sorts of vermin to injure it, and cause it to leak 
away? The English language is hardly strong enough to tell how big a fool such a 
man would be. Yet, observe how grain is handled in Australia. It is lifted by hand, 
when to lift it by simple and inexpensive machinery would be both easier and cheaper. 
It is lifted over the edges of receptacles instead of being allowed to run out of them 
at the bottom; it is habitually carried downhill instead of being allowed to run of its 
own accord. When being transported by the thousand bushels, it is cooped up in 
4.bushel receptacles. It is everywhere put down so as to be lifted again by hand at 
the next handling. It is preferred to store it in a way that not only allows but 
actually invites various vermin to injure it, and cause it to leak away. 
On account of the lateness of the hour I shall not read any more of the article, but 
I may tell you that this is what I have seen with my own eyes. At Fort William 
there were three elevators belonging to the same company, each with a capacity 
of 1,500,000 bushels—that is, the three of them had a capacity for 4,500,000 
bushels. Each could handle 300,000 bushels of wheat perday. They unloaded 
it from the railway trucks, cleaned and graded it, weighed it, and, if necessary, 
they would load it into a ship’s hold. The charge for the whole of that work 
was, as I was informed, half-a-farthing per bushel—that is, half-a-penny per 
bag. To handle that 900,000 bushels per day, there were one engineer, one 
fireman, and five men to each elevator, and, with the exception probably ot the 
fireman, not one of those men were doing what you could class as manual labour. 
The whole thing was done mechanically. With a charge of half-a-farthing per 
bushel the company was paying a handsome dividend, and it was a sight to see 
the loaded wagons of wheat waiting their turn to be unloaded by the elevator. 
It-was a sight no Queenslander could look at unmoved, and I can only wish that 
I had the power to so describe the effect it had on me as to have each one of 
you affected as I was. I am sure that if the suggestion, that I had the pleasure 
of hearing—that two or three of the observant farmers of Queensland be sent 
on a mission to see the things that they could learn for use in this country by. 
a short visit to Canada or the United States—were adopted, it would be an 
extremely profitable one to Queensland. It would not be left to one who is not 
a practical farmer to have to standup and urge upon our growers the importance 
