Lincoln County leader., September 21, 1900, Image 7

SCENES
4 MOVING THE
A Gigantic Industry
JL Capital and Countless Hands.
At the present time the quantity of
"wheat which Is sent abroad from the
United States and Canada annually is
about 250,000,000. Yet this, large as
it is, will certainly be more than dou
bled within the next ten years.
Sir William Crookes, the distingulsh
m! president of the British Association
for tlie Advancement of Science, writ
lug recently of the proportion between
wheat production and wheat consump
tion, ventured to name the year 1031
as a date when the world's bread-eat--rs
would cry for more wheat than the
world's farmers could produce. This
may be an overestimate, yet the statis
tics from which such prophecies are
drawn show how very closely the con
sumer treads upon the heels of the pro
ducer, and how imperative Is the neces
sity of distributing the eroi grown
perhaps half a world away from the
centers of consumption as soon as it
is shaken from the threshers In a mill
Ion llelds, in order that every white
man shall have his loaf, and have It
before his last supply has run out.
Great Britain eats her entire wheat
wop In about thirteen weeks, anil then
the must be supplied Immediately with
t lie products of America or Central
Itussla or India, or else she niut suffer.
If the United Kingdom lie completely
blockaded, say by the ships of allied
Europe, her population would probably
be totally extinguished by starvation
within three months. The like Is true
of every country In western Europe,
jilthough In some of them actual star
vation could be much longer averted.
Generally speaking, the vast tides of
wheat seut to the east and north from
Hie emigrant farmers on the edge of
civilization to the cities of the old coun
tries; from the American continent.
Chill, and Argentine to Europe. There
me lesser tides to the west aud south,
from California to China, from U Us
ui a and India to England, from the
United States to Brao
IN THE WHEAT COUNTRY.
WHEAT CROP.
4.
Employing Millions of
A few years may make a great many
changes In these tides. The rice-eating
Chinaman has tasted the food of the
white man and he finds It good. lie
could consume the present world's crop
and still go hungry. Siberia, opened
by the Russian railroad, may yet be
oue of the greatest wheat-producing
countries. Australia has been farmed
only around Its fringes.
When a European thinks of food he
thinks In terms of wheat. He Is the
greatest of bread-eaters. Yet In the
best of years Europe never produces
enough, even including the crops from
the vast fields of Russia, to supply her
own needs. She Is tuerefore absolute
ly dependent on the United States,
Canada, India, Australia and Argen
tine. v Progressive Wheat Growers.
The American and Canadian farmer,
and particularly the Northwestern
wheat farmer, who ploughs and reaps
and threshes by machinery without so
much as touching his product wit li his
hands, is becoming pre-eminently a
man of business.. The Governments
have supplied colleges fur t ducating
hltn.'and they send hii.i regular bulle
tins containing the rcstilj. of long-continued
experilliet'ls en !eil hy ihe
I icpurtnictit of Airin.i rc. lie Is u
wide rutder. soim ii.uc a i.ilnUir. aud
always a politicl.m i.very morning
during t heydays ol liaret lie receives
the reports of the Board of Trade or
the Chamber of Commerce where his
wheat Is likely to be sold. He has also
on Ins desk dally prices and a general
advisory letter from his commission
men.
The primary movement of wheat Is
the natural How to the local flour mill,
where It Is ground to feed the farmer's
family, and toward the granary, where
It Is stored up for seed. The propor
tion of wucut thus actually retained
and consumed In the country where It
is gTown Is very large.
When the farmer has amply provided
for himself, he begins to think of sell
ing his surplus which In 181)8, for the
United States and Canada, amounted
to the enormous total of 450,000,000
bushels. Of this, something less than
half Is consumed In the cities of the
United States and Canada, and some
thing more than half Is exported to
foreign countries, either as wheat or as
flour.
The wheat crop of the average year
Is, therefore, divided Into three more or
less equal parts, the first being con
sumed by the farmer aud his immedi
ate neighbors of the smaller towns and
villages, the second going to supply the
LAKE VESSELS LOADING
concentrated masses of population In
the great cities, and the third being ex
ported os wheat or flour to feed the
foreigner.
Mr. Kay Stannord Baker, In an article
on the Movement of Wheat, lu Mc
Clure's Magazine, tells of the manner
In which the whent crop la disposed of
by the wheat farmer.
There are three general methods by
which this Is done. In the prolific
Northwest, where large numbers of
ill USSIm
farmers are cultivating from 3,000 to
10,000 acres of wheat a year, where
the various farm buildings are con
nected by telephone, where the plough
ing Is done by complicated machinery,
where the farmer owns from two to
ten threshing machines, from twenty
to fifty reapers and hundreds of cattle
and horses, the sale of a crop becomes
a large business proposition.
But the great mass of smaller farm
ers, especially throughout the winter
wheat districts, still sell In the old
fashioned way, to the local elevator
man or buyer. Tiiey keep themselves
so thoroughly Informed, however, as
to the relgulng prices In the great
marts and the probabilities as to rise
or fall, that the commission f the
local dealer have been scaled" to the
lowest uotch. Indeed, In this day of
many railroads, If the small wheat
grower is dissatisfied with local prices,
he can combine with his neighbors a
not Infrequent occurrence and shlD
directly by carload lots to some city
commission man, who Is only too will
ing to buy his grain at the highest pos
sible price.
System of Elevators.
So fierce Is the competition among
the wheat buyers that at some centers,
most notably Minneapolis, vast sys
tems of elevators have sprung up, each
controlled by a powerful central house
at the terminal point. There are no
fewer than thirty-six elevator com
panies In Minneapolis, controlling 1,802
country elevators with a combined ca-
wheat,
A single company controls 115 coun
try elevators having a capacity of 4,
750,000 bushels of. wheat. And the
head of this company Is also the head
of other companies there, having lines
of elevators In Minnesota and the Da
kotas with a combiued storage capacity
of nearly 10,000.000 bushels. He also
has lines of elevators In Nebraska and
Kansas.
Perhaps no one thing so simplifies
and facilitates the movement of wheat
as the present rigid system of Inspec
tion and grading. In former times a
load of grain must needs be carefully
examined by every prospective pur
chaser, were he miller or commission
man; and If this buyer sold again, a
second examination became necessary,
with its attendant disagreement as to
quality. The' business of wheat buy
ing, indeed, was full of time-consuming
details, and In the end neither party
to a trade was likely to be satisfied.
As a consequence, the State govern
ment, or, in some primary markets, the
local chamber of commerce, stepped In,
and assumed charge of the whole sys
tem of grading and Inspection; and
now no portion of the great wheat bus
iness moves with more ease and effi
ciency, a degree of care and accuracy
simply amazing to the outsider being
constantly maintained.
The method of grading the wheat Is
thus described by Mr. Baker, lu Mc
Clure's: "The deputy Inspector and his men
are out early In the morning. The cars
from the wheat fields have been shunt
ed to the'.r special sld'ug in each of
the yards. One man goes ahead, re
cording the numbers and Initials of the
cars, and examining the seals to see
that no one has tampered with them.
A second man breaks the seals and
opens the doors, and then comes the
deputy himself the wheat expert. He
is quick and keen, long schooled In ob
serving the minute dlflerences which
mark the wheat from different parts of
the country. I saw one grizzly old lu
spector who had become so expert that,
according to humorous report, be could
tell what county In the West a car of
wheat came from merely by suifllng a
pinch of the grain.
"The Inspector looks sharply for
AT A CHICAGO ELEVATOR.
threshers' dust, oats, cocKie; nud he
examines the kernels keenly t,o see If
they are shrunken or burnt; and then
he smells for smut. He even plunges
a hollow brass tube Into the heap to
make sure that some cunning shipper
lias not put In a layer or 'plug' of poorer
grade wheat at the bottom of the car.
Usually he Is able to decide on the
grade of a carload almost as soon is he
Bees the wheat; but sometimes lie Is
compelled to take out a uhxch here and
there, and then weigh It in a llttli
brass kettle, to make sure that it comet
strictly within the lawful specifica
tions. He is an absolutely impartial
judge. He records only the number and
Initials of the car. He never knows who
Is the shipper. I beard of one deputy
who inspected his own brother's wheal
for six months without knowing whose
It was.
"The official Inspector Is accompanied
by a number of active young men ol
the sampling bureau, which represents
the great elevator and commission
houses. They climb Into the car, ihrusl
a brass plunger deep Into the wheat,
bring up a sample here and there, fill
a bag, label it with the number and
Initials of the car, and pass on with the
Inspector. It Is swift work, of neces
sity, for the samples must be in at th
opening of the Chamber of Commerce,
where, set out In little tin pans, each
bearing the grade tag of the State In
spector, they form the basis of th
day's trading."
At present the four great wheat ele
vator centers are Minneapolis, Duluth,
Chicago and Buffalo. In the last-named
city some of the elevators have a stor
age capacity of from 100,000 to 2,500.
000 bushels, some of them built of steel,
operated by electricity from Niagara
Falls, protected from fire by pneu
matic water systems, and having com
plete machinery for cleaning, drying
and scouring the wheat, when that la
necessary.
The elevators are provided with 80
Called "lees." Innw fmmitei C0Ht2,.!!!!!,'
moving bucket-belts, which are lowered
into the hold of a grain-laden vessel.
Here the wheat Is shoveled by grimy,
workmen, tolling In a cloud of dust.
Into the pathway of huge teata Bhov-
els, which, In turn, draw the yellow
load It looks from above like so much
sand to the ends of the "legs," where
the buckets seize It and carry it upj
wards into the elevator, and distribute
it among the various bins. A cargo ol
180,000 buBhels can thus be unloaded
In a few hours, while legs on the other
Bide of the elevator will reload It inta
cars, six at a time In five minutes, or In
an hour fill a canal boat.
The cost of all these operations has
been reduced to a ridiculously low fig
urethe entire work of unloading,
storing and reloading rarely adding
more than one cent to the price of a
bushel of wheat.
Carriage to Seaboard.
The transportation of wheat from the
West to the seaboard is a business of
almost inconceivable magnitude. It
means millions of dollars a year to
railroad and ship owners, and during
the rush season of the late fall, so great
Is the demand for transportation that
shippers find difficulty lu obtaining
enough cars and vessels.
Most of the wheat of the Northwest
now goes by way of the lakes, through
the Sault Ste. Marie canal, to Buffalo,
where It Is shipped by rail or canal to
New York, Boston, Baltimore and Phil
adelphia. Few appreciate the magnitude of the
lake shipping Interests, which have
been developed to a considerable extent
by the transportation of wheat. Du-luth-Supcrlor
Is the second port In the
United States In polut of tonuage, be
ing exceeded only by New York. The
Sault Ste. Marie Canal passes two and
a half times as much tonnage in eight
mouths as the Suez Canal passes In a
full year. Lake shipping furnishes,
moreover, the cheapest transportation
In the world, the rate being approxi
mately three-quarters of a mill per ton
per mile.
Some of the greater lake vessels car
ry enormous cargoes up to 250,000
bushels of wheat In a single load. With
out comparisons, It Is ilitllcult to form
any conception of the Immensity of a
enrgo of this size. In Duluth, 700 bush
els are estimated as a carload. At that
role, a curgo of 252,000 bushels, which
has actually been transported from Du
luth to Buffalo, would fill 300 cars, or
nine trains of forty cars each. At fif
teen bushels to the acre, this cargo
would represent the yield of 10,800
acres of land. In many localities a
farm of 1(50 acres Is looked upon as a
large one. It would take 105 such farms
to raise enough wheat to furnish this
one cargo.
Until recently New York had the
lion's share of the wheat export busi
ness; but latterly Boston, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, New Orleans, Galveston
and Montreal have been large exporters.
For the fiscal year 1899 New York took
only 28.8 per cent, while New Orleans
and Galveston hnd 10.9 per cent, each,
Boston 12, Baltimore 9.4, and Philadel
phia (I per cent., the remainder being
scattered between Montreal, Portland,
Norfolk and Newport News.
To quote again from Mr. Baker, the
average yield of wheat per acre Is grad
ually creeping up. In 1890 It was only
11.1 bushels to the acre; In 1895 It was
13.7 bushels; while In 1898 It had reach
ed 15.3 bushels. By the use of machin
ery, combined with cheaper rates of
transportation for supplies, the farmer
can produce a larger yield more cheap
ly than ever before, so that, although
the farm prices for wheat do not aver
age higher from yenr to year, the farm
er's profits are larger.
Flax Industry.
New Zealand's flux Industry has re
vived and flourished exceedingly, owing
to the war In the Philippines having
shortened the outout of Manila fiber.