• Agriculture
• Object :: Bush repaired Scoop
• Object :: Tumbling Tommy
• Interview :: Murray Smith
• Interview :: Peter Darley
• Windmills, pumps, steam power and engines
• Interview :: Max Jones
• Chaff Cutting
• Object :: Water Barrel
• Object :: Furphy Water Cart
• Ophir
• Object :: Gold Washing Cradle
• Object :: Picks and Mining Pan
• Object :: Chinese Scroll
• Object :: Chinese Shoulder Yoke
• Lucknow
• Historic Cadia
• Water at Cadia Valley Operations
• Interview :: John Ford
• Interview :: Joel Fossilo
• Object :: Testing Apparatus

Chaff Cutting in Millthorpe

Millthorpe was one the largest producers of quality chaff in NSW. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century chaff cutting contractors used steam power to cut commercial quantities of chaff, feeding stooks from the haystack into a chaff cutting machine before it was bagged and loaded onto wagons for transport to markets. Water was an essential ingredient in the process, creating steam to power the chaff cutter. Steam also softened the hay so that it was chopped crisply, making good quality chaff. In addition to powering the plant, water also kept the men and horses going during a hard day’s work.

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George Whiley's chaff cutting plant, Millthorpe, c1930.
Steam from the stationary engine drives the chaff cutter and softens the hay on the chute before it is fed into the chaff cutter, a machine that sometimes chopped fingers as well as hay. The cart holds a square tank of water originally from a ship; a billy hangs underneath. Con and Tom’s tucker boxes are in the foreground.
Photo: Peter Whiley

What is Chaff Cutting?

Chaff cutting is the process of cutting sheaves of hay from a stook or hay stack into chaff. Chaff and hay played a vital role in most agricultural production up until the 1940s when tractors became more reliable for farming operations. Horses were the tractors and semitrailers of their day and chaff was the petrol. Chaff was cut from wheaten and oaten hay. It was the staple diet for horses that provided the power for cultivation, planting and harvesting crops. Horses were also the transport for those rare trips to town for supplies.

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Stack building is a trade in itself, each sheaf has to be placed one at a time into the stack, the stack has to stand-alone and shed the water when it rains. Some haystacks might be left for years before they were used. If the stack was built properly the hay should be as good as the day it was put there. These nine stacks were erected in six days by E. J. Davis of Brown’s Creek, working with Perce Cooper, Pat South, Terry South, Bruce Adams, Don Adams, Alan Barker and Noel Barker.
Photo: Millthorpe and District Historical Society