All those steam engines had to be government tested every year and the safety valves set at about 140 lbs per square inch. We were not allowed to operate without a government ticket.

Of course, steam power was the only power available in those days. The chaff was always transported to the Canowindra railway siding by horse teams.

The late Fred (Porter) Rice was the best teamster I ever encountered. He truly was a great man with team horses. It may interest you to know that the late Martin Fliedner brought the biggest load of wheat to the Canowindra station - T19-19.5 cwt max 240 bags. They could have given him 56 lbs and made his load 20 tonnes. All on a wagon drawn by eight horses. When small motor lorries started carting chaff they carried 92 bags, half a railway S truck.

Cliff Bowd was the first man to bring a semi trailer to Canowindra and carried 184 bags, an S truck load each time.

The Canowindra station master told us the Canowindra station was second only to Ganmain to send out more produce in NSW during the 1930’s.

Of course, there were many others who had small machines and cut chaff for their own use. Some were the Mulligan Bros from Mogong, Bert Rice, D Grant , F Graham and Cullane’s just to name a few

Some lucerne farmers had as many as 23 men working for them and one foreman.

I will never forget I was standing by our campfire having a cup of tea and Old Ted the foreman said to me, “is that one of my men standing down there or is that a bloody post I’m looking at.”

He was a character and I had to laugh.

The farm wages in those days was around 3 pounds 5 shillings less tax about 3 / 6 or $6.50 - 35 cents tax today money language

Chaff cutting was always a very interesting life and we were always told how the farmer next door was such a so & so. I could tell many interesting stories but time does not permit them here.

During our time on the road we travelled many miles from Canowindra to Dunedoo and from Dunedoo to Corowa and Albury.

I cut chaff at so many interesting places.

Once we were actually on the very edge of the Corowa airport and the planes used to buzz us everyday.

True, you may not believe me but chaff cutting had its own problems and tragedy’s.

But it is so very true that 57 men lost hands in chaff cutters from Millthorpe, Blayney area to Grenfell that excluded Canowindra, Gooloogong and Eugowra during my lifetime.

I guess many just got careless and lot concentration.

Almost 121 men lost their hands in the Canowindra district.

There were many court cases over the years and two water cases on the Belubula River went all the way to the Privy Council in London for settlement but that is another story

Mr Ces Slattery was the last lucerne farmer to use horses for all farm work before he retired from lucerne farming in 1969 and machinery took over completely.”

In 1955 Dad took the cutter off the road and set up in Lucerne Foods Shed in Mill St where he stayed until he sold the cutter in 1975.

My brother and I grew up in the that shed feeding the bale breaker, sowing bags, loading S trucks or just having fun riding down the hay skids.

Even in my time before Dad sold the cutter there were names like Rice, Fliedner, Tobin, Earsman, Rue, Sciefleet and Doug Middleton, just to name a few, that made a living out of carting hay.

Jack Rice was the first man to bring a bale wagon to town and I can still remember the conversations on how it would end the need for bale carters.

Of course who could ever forget the contributions that Tom Davidson made to the lucerne industry.

He made the first ever mower conditioner combination which is still in my procession today and what New Holland based all machines on after that, the mechanical age of lucerne production in this area would not have been so successful without his knowledge and ingenuity.

Yours faithfully

Geoffrey Beath