Wheat Pics...

  

I have often posted photographs of Sydney’s streets and building as they appeared years ago. There are just as many, if not more, photographic images of rural Australia in bygone days: woodcutters, bullock drays, paddle steamers, hay bales, shearing and so on.

Old photographs of haystacks and wheat stacks of bagged wheat at railway stations are fascinating to a city boy such as myself, who is more familiar with the haystacks of Monet and Van Gogh than those of rural New South Wales and Victoria.  Hopefully the following slection of pics will be as fascinating for you as well.

(Byter Mick from Canowindra told me that wheat at railway stations is now stored in specially built sheds).

(Click on the photographs to enlarge;  in some cases clicking on the enlarged image will further increase the size).

Building a wheatstack 1922

Another pic of a wheatstack being built, c 1900

Dodge Truck with load of wheat - Bectric via Ariah Park, NSW

This was long before bulk handling of wheat. It was bagged and lumpers had to be employed to carry it on their backs and stack it. Bags weighed 180 lbs (80 kilos) or more- Nelungaloo, NSW

(Labourers employed to load, unload and handle heavy freight such as timber and wheat sacks are known as “lumpers”).

Wheat stacks owned by John Darling and Sons at a railway station.

Portion of wheat stacks in a good season - Yarrabandai railway yards, NSW

Wheat Stack - Dubbo, NSW c 1925

Wheat lumper - Temora, NSW c 1925

Men building wheat stack, 1895

Wheat stack at the Sea Lake Railway Station, Victoria, c 1910. Note the bullock team on the left.

Two men standing in front of a haystack at Jeparit, Victoria, 1935. . There is a mouse guard around the haystack.

Wheat stacks at the Sea Lake railway yards., Victoria c 1905.   The sacks have been stacked in a distinctive pattern.

Men posed whilst working on a wheat stack that had been damaged by a mouse plague – Warracknabeal, Victoria, 1917