THE HANDLING OF GRAIN.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1249, 6 February 1896, Page 5

THE HANDLING OF GRAIN.

Dr Cobb, the Government Pathologist of New South Wales, writes as follows in the Government Agricultural Gazette :—" When I see a farmer go to his nearest market town several miles distant, pay 5d each for bags by the waggon load, take them home and put them away in a dry place until wanted, then once more carry them out to the field, fill them with grain, sew them up, and, if he is a careful man, label each bag separately, lift the bags of wheat on to a high dray, take them to his barn, unload them, stack them, and then later on lilt them down again, rip them open, clean the grain by machinery, bag it up again, label the bags again, stack them once more until such time as the market price suits him ; when I see Lim, having made a sale, unstacking them once more several weeks later, sewing up the holes the mice have gnawed meanwhile, lifting them again on to bis high dray and off again one by one at the raiWrvr shed ; when I see the grain leaking out through burst, torn and gnawed hole 3 all the way from the railway shed to the seaboard ; when I see bags of precious grain, representing the income of farmers in all parts of the country, standing days at a time exposed to wet weather and losing value—simply because grain in bags cannot be handled fast enough to prevent a glut at the metropolitan or other central market; when I see valuable property, such as railway trucks, standing idle day by clay, letting interest on people's money go to waste, because these trucks cinnot be loaded with bags of wheat quickly and despatched to their destination ; when I see thousands of bushels of uncovei*ed 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 of bags of wheat—a picnic lasting 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." As to the remedy Dr Cobb goes on to say : —" There is no secret in the remedy ; 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> in a large measure, be handled UJce 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 simplo idea, the result will be a change in our methods of handling grain, beginning in the field and ending at the mill. What would you think of a man who lifted all the water out of his well in a : bucket instead of with a pump ? What '. would you think of a aan who lifted j i

all the water out over the edge of a tank instead of letting it run out through the faucet at the bottom 1 What, would you think of a man who habitually canned water downhill instead of letting it run through a pipe? 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 1 What would you think of a man who caught his roof water in an underground tank, so ias 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 vrky that not only allowed, but actually invited, various sorts of vermin to injure it, and cause it to leak away % The English language isn't 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 beinjj allowed to run of its own accord. When being transported by the thousand bushels, it is caged up in 4-bushel receptacles. It is everywhere nut down so as to be lifted again at the next handling. Xu va it in a way that not only allows, but actually invites, various vermin to injure it and cause it to leak away."