facturers to manufacture them here, I presume under royalty. What I like about the Huhn machines is that they are so portable.

3336. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: The Huhn machine is a long revolving cylinder?—Yes with fins on the outside of the cylinder. The steam is in the centre, and the fins pick the wheat up and throw it down through the hot pipes in the centre. So there is no fear of the grain getting roasted.

3337. The cylinder revolves around the hot pipes and picks up the grain and drops it?—Yes. The Otis people have a modification of that, but I do not think they will be able to go on with it, because the Huhn people have warned them about infringing their patent. In America these machines are used principally for drying corn, and there they have big moisture percentages—they have to drop from 23 per cent. to 17. That is a big lot of moisture to take out of the grain.

3338. I have used the machines for manufacturing artificial manure and so on?—My view is that with our small percentage of moisture in the wheat, comparatively speaking, it will be possible to put more wheat through the machines in a given time.

3339. By the CHAIRMAN: I notice Mr. Love speaks very highly of Robinson's machine. He said an endeavour has been made to grow weevil in this grain but it has not been successful?—Because the moisture contents were not sufficient. We know that weevil attack wheat when there is eight per cent.

3340. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: You can have too much moisture for weevil?—Yes. I would not recommend the Government to take Robinson's machine. If anything is put up I think Poole and Steele's the best.

3341. By the CHAIRMAN: He said that one of our machines was built to our specification by Poole and Steele. They put some wheat through on Tuesday afternoon. The wheat was from a rejected pile and the grain was very full of weevil. The machine has an arrangement for picking out the very rough stuff, which is passed into the heating chamber and subjected to 140 degrees of heat?—One hundred and forty to 160 degrees.

3342. He goes on to say, "We could not see any trace of weevil on the wheat when it came out of this chamber." This was some time in April?—After that they altered that machine. The vortex with wheat is important. You want to prevent the vortex or you do not get the grain through in an even quantity. The Professor, to make the Pool and Steele better, designed a moving tray underneath the heating apparatus and that prevented the vortex forming.

3343. He also pointed out, apart from the establishment of the machine, a lot of wheat was made different?—It seems to be a more suitable article.

3344. So that it improves the other wheat as well?—There is no doubt about that.

3345. I saw some wheat worse than this (indicating sample)?—Our wheat all through stands alone. Dr. Duval said if we could grade our wheat into North and South we should get so much more per bushel for our northern wheat, that is our hard wheat. He said that the Spencer's Brook depot was one of the best he had seen in Australia. I do not want to say the best because I do not want to be offensive to other States that have been kind to me.

3346. The cost you say is high as far as treating this is concerned?—That is the question; whether the people here are prepared to pay the price.

3347. Have the Committee gone into the question of what it has cost through weevil as compared with the saving by the machine?—That is a point we have tried to get at. It is a moot question. I think it is about five per cent. of wheat that is lost, but Mr. Keys disagrees with me on that.

3348. He does not think that quantity is lost?—He thinks about two per cent. Personally I think about five per cent.

3349. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: Purely on account of weevil?—Yes.

3350. By the CHAIRMAN: Basing that on the gristing now?—It may be due to the millers' plants not being quite up to the mark, or it may be due to the fact that the flour is not in the wheat.

3351. We know that some of the wheat is very badly eaten?—I saw some sent in to Spencer's Brook. It was some of the 1916-17 wheat and it was absolutely riddled. It was detected by Spencer's Brook before it got into the stack, but it was absolutely riddled through and through.

3352. By Mr. HARRISON: What happened to it?—It was put into a truck and sent to the re-conditioning plant at Fremantle.

3353. It was not allowed to stay there?—No. That is one of the things in favour of having bag samples. If you take a running sample you miss all that sort of thing.

3354. By the CHAIRMAN: That is when the Government take it over you mean?—Yes, the agents are suppose to find it out, too. I was at Spencer's Brook on Friday when a covered truck came in and the weevils were absolutely crawling and dropping on the ground. What chance have we with that, and it is a clean site there compared with other depots I have seen. But imagine weevils dropping about and getting into the wet wheat.

3355. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: That was in the truck?—Yes.

3356. Did you see how long it had been in the truck?—We took a record, but I have not it with me now.

3357. The weevil must have been there some days?—Yes, they were dropping all over the place. It is a menace to Australia.

3358. By the CHAIRMAN: I notice a lot of the trucks coming to Fremantle, the date that the wheat was put in the trucks is not there?—The date of trucking should be on. Would it be some of the conditioning wheat? I think nearly all the wheat sent to Fremantle now is rejected wheat. We are not taking any wheat at Fremantle excepting wheat that is rejected for treatment.

3359. The date should have been on the truck?—Yes.

3360. As far as you are concerned, you are pessimistic about the wheat?—I am. There is only one way to store wheat, and I am saying this after talking with Dr. Duval, Mr. Love, and Professor Lefroy. There is only one way to store wheat, and that is in concrete silos.

3361. And that is a matter of impossibility?—No, I think you can have a certain number of these and make it easy to handle the harvest. It is impossible in a large place, but there with our small crop, we have a big chance.

3362. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: Would you not get the weevil in these just the same?—In the first eight or ten feet.

3363. By the CHAIRMAN: Take our average harvest, say 12,000,000 bushels?—It was about 9,000,000 bushels last year, and I do not suppose that we will get more than 9,000,000 or 10,000,000 this year.

3364. Take the average as 10,000,000?—Suppose you put up silos to hold 4,000,000 bushels. It costs now for sheds about 2¼d. per bushel. That is the capital cost straight away; 1½d. to put it into the shed, and then there is the interest on the capital outlay which would be about ⅛d. to ¾d., which brings it up to about 4d.

3365. If our wheat stood two years, you would have about 16,000,000 bushels of wheat on a 10,000,000 average?—What I say is this: take 10,000,000 bushels; we make provision for 4,000,000 bushels. That allows 6,000,000 to be provided for. For seeding purposes we use 1¾ million bushels, or, say, 2,000,000. That reduces it to 4,000,000 that we have to look after. We assume what is in the bins is safe. Out of the 4,000,000 bushels we have mills that can chew that up in no time. We use about 1½ million bushels for our own consumption, and we can easily handle that with our appliances.

3366. By Mr. HARRISON: Are you not wide of the mark, 1¾ million bushels for seeding purposes?—It would not all go into seeding. Farmers feed pigs and they use wheat for other purposes. That proportion mentioned is what the farmers keep.

3367. By Mr. BROWN: Say, 3,000,000 bushels for seeding and local supplies?—Yes.

3368. By the CHAIRMAN: that means we would have 3,000,000 bushels left?—We could easily handle that. You could take the wheat out of the silos and use it.

3369. By Hon. J. F. ALLEN: That is only one year's harvest. What would you do next year?—You