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110 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Ava., 1902. 
Agricultural College at Gatton, yet his own differs very little from it even to 
the exit and entrance gates, which are precisely similar to those at the College. 
Twenty-four cows can be accommodated in this shed, where everything is 
arranged for their comfort and for the convenience of the attendants. 
The stalls run down the centre of the building, and at intervals there are 
partitions between which three cows have ample room to lie in comfort when 
housed. The whole of the ground floor is cemented, and slopes imperceptibly 
to either side, thus allowing all liquid matter to flow into 2 shallow bevelled-off 
drain, whence it passes through pipes to the outside of the building, where a 
box drain will convey it to a tank alongside the manure pit. ‘The usual bails, 
three in number, occupy each of the eight compartments. 
In order to prevent the cows pushing their heads through the bails when 
not being fed in the bins which run from end to end of the shed, a simple 
mechanical appliance, which works simultaneously with the motion of the bails, 
opposes a barrier to the cow’s wily attempts. A short rope with an eye anda 
toggle is placed round the cow’s neck, and is just sufficiently short to prevent 
her passing her head round into her neighbour’s stall, whilst it is long enough 
to allow her to lie down in comfort and even to turn half round. Few of the 
cows require to be leg-roped, but where this is necessary a remarkable style of 
leg-roping is adopted. Instead of one leg being hauled’ back by the rope, both 
legs are fastened by a peculiar hitch just above the hock. By this arrange- 
ment it is impossible for the cow to kick or to switch her tail, which is securely 
fastened by the rope. All the animal can do, if inclined to resent this confine- 
ment, is to buck, but the bucking is of short duration and seldom occurs a 
second time. When the cows are milked, the milk is poured into cans which 
stand on recesses constructed at intervals in the walls of the building. A 
wooden tramline runs down the whole length of the stalls, by which the chaffed 
fodder is conveyed to the feeding troughs Overhead is a flooring laid on the 
tie-beams on which some twenty bales of chaff can be stored. There are six 
wide doors to the building running in grooves instead of opening on hinges, thus 
avoiding the slamming of doors during a high wind and the consequent damage 
to hinges and doors. 
Everywhere the most scrupulous attention is paid to cleanliness, and, as 
the whole place can be washed down by gravitation, the minimum of hand 
labour is required. The entrance and exit gates are so arranged that the cows 
after being milked pass out at a gate opposite to the one they entered by, 
and they remain in a yard separate from that in which the as yet unmilked 
cows are awaiting their turn. 
As far as fodder is concerned, the animals are now on what Mr. Skerman 
calls “ Soldiers’ Rations’”—é.e., rather rough and limited in quantity. Still, 
there is yet a couple of months’ supply of good oaten hay in the barn, besides 
a quantity of dry corn stalks and husks which, when chaffed and damped, afford 
a considerable amount of nutriment, and are eaten with avidity by both cows 
and. horses. 
These materials, are chaffed by means of a two-horse chaffcutter capable 
of chaffing 8 tons daily. When crops are plentiful, the lucerne and oaten 
chaff are pressed into 300-cwt. bales. The bales are placed in a sunken frame ; 
the chaff is shovelled into them and pressed as closely as possible. Then a 
pulley is brought into play through which passes a rope to which are attached 
our hooks. ‘I'he hooks are stuck into the bale; a horse is hitched on to the other 
end of the rope, and he lifts up the full bale, which is sewn up, hooked on to 
another rope, and raised at once on to a wagon (Fig. 2). There is no lifting to 
be done by anyone engaged in the work. 
In connection with harvesting the corn crop, another device is employed. 
As cornstalks will henceforth be considered of more value as fodder than 
as rubbish to be burnt, the whole crop will be stooked. 
We here give an illustration (Fig. 8) of a very simple but effective 
appliance by which the stooks are rapidly and firmly built. 
