WASTE OF FOOD

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 67, 17 September 1917, Page 9

WASTE OF FOOD

"Scandalous condition of WHEAT STACKS.".

A well-known farmer in New 'vSouth Wales recently calletl at the Sydney oiiice of the Pastoral lie view alter a trip through the wheat area of that State. He said that 'stacks were placed at every railway station on the route .'he had travelled, viz., between Temora , and Barellan. 1 Many of them were in a state of . collapse. They all had' been, but som'p had had the bags refilled and restacked, and those which had been at-, tended to were commencing to fall away again. Many' of them were protected with' a so-called mouse-proof enclosure, consisting of corrugated sheet iron. Those that were being mjido mouse-proof were falling down from the mice at one- end before they .were finished at the other end. There seemed to..be no one in control of them,, for the ,fowls from the neighbouring township . residences were feeding and laying. eggs in the stacks, and in many places the township cows were 'feeding on the stacks, often treading; dowrf the mouse-proof enclosures. Men were present rebagging the wheat with shovels. 1 You would 'frequently see them come across a- pocket of dead mice mingled with the wheat, when they would throw them over their shoulders and go ou bagging the rest. The odd ones they missed were thrown- out with their hands .occasionally, others went into the stacks. On the collapse of the stacks the roofing ga,ve way or was blown off .or. removed in course of reconstruction, and the rain which was falling continuously during the week was_ falling on the wheat. This'spilled wheat,' which was wet, was being shovelled up on to-the stack. Its dampness and filthiness seemed to make no; difference. On one occasion he saw a train doing shunting operations run over some bags which had fallen out of a stack; these caused many more bags to break away, and in falling they struck against the moving train. He saw one. bag caught; on bolts on the. side of the truck, and it was carried away up the line at the rate of ten or fifteen miles an hour, spilling wheat till "'the 1 bag was emptied. On expressing surprise or disgust, an onlooker said: "Oh, that's nothing, that occurs every day." It appearedl to be treated more as a joke than a crime. Between Junee and towards Wagga the stacks appeared to be in a slightly better conditioned state, but in the case of many of those supposed to be moiiEeproof with galvanised iron, he noticed ba^s hanging over the fences, and boxes which enabled mice to get into the enclosures. It looked to him almost as though this were wilful. Anythings more scandalous cannot be imagined.