Wheat stacks waiting for transport at Port Victoria.

Wheat was bagged in the farm paddock and transported to the town: each bag contained about 4 bushels (or 110 kgs). After 1909 the bags were a little smaller holding 72 kgs or 3 bushels. At the grain agents' yards the bags were tallied and then loaded onto the stacks. The stacks were always 23 bags high and the largest stack in Port Victoria was the Farmers' Union stack which was 156 feet by 66 feet or the size of a town block. This contained 20,000 bags.

When a ship arrived in port, horses pulled flat-topped trolleys from the stacks down to the jetty from where the bags were loaded into ketches for transfer to the ships moored off-shore: this was labour intensive, and from the farm to the ship's hold bags were handled six times.

In Port Victoria in 1913 there were six grain buying agents: J. Darling & Sons, SA Farmers Co-op Union Ltd, James Bell & Co., Dreyfus & Co., Wills & Co., H. R. Buckerfield & Sons.

In the end bulk handling at ports such as Wallaroo and Ardrossan would see the end of wheat stacks such as these and the laborious manual handling of thousands of bags of grain. From a port of significance, Port Victoria became a service town and a tourist centre.

Heinrich, Rhoda Wide sails and wheat stacks: a history of Port Victoria and the Hundred of Wauraltee Port Victoria, S.A.: Port Victoria Centenary Committee, 1976

Historical notes relating to the wheat industry in South Australia [Melbourne?: Australian Wheat Board], 1976