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Compensation lever swing trees

A collection of old metal gate hinges leaning on the brick wall of the Blacksmiths shop. Some of the hinges have metal bolts in them. Photo: Kate von Stieglitz / Tourism Australia.

Used to yoke three draught horses together, the compensation apparatus between the three swing trees (which attached to the horses or bullocks) equalised the load across the animals.

Convict wheelwright Benjamin Cooper was kept busy in the August of 1829, as William Archer noted that between the 18th–29th Cooper spent four days solid making yokes to aid in pulling waggons and carts.

Compensation lever swing tree. Source: The Book of Farm Implements and Machines, Slight & Burn, 1858, p211.
Compensation lever swing tree (Source: The Book of Farm Implements and Machines, Slight & Burn, 1858, p211)