THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



493 



these have been proposed to be attained, may consult an 

 article entitled " A few Notes on Corn drying, and its 

 Advantages to the Practical Agriculturist ;" contributed 

 by us to the Jovrnal of Agriculture, No. 44, new 

 series. We shall here confine ourselves to the descrip- 

 tion of one which we consider very efficient as a mecha- 

 nical means of laying all the grain in contact with the 

 heating surfaces, turning it over and over continuously 

 during the whole of the period in which it is passing 

 through the machine. The invention is founded upon 

 the well-known Archimedean screw, which is frequently 

 used to convey flour from one part of a mill to another. 

 If our reader has witnessed the action of this apparatus, 

 he will have noticed, doubtless, that while the flour is 

 gradually led or moved along from one end of the trough 

 to the other, there is no displacement of its particles 

 from one side of the trough to the other ; that is, the 

 flour is moved along in one mass, without any disturb- 

 ance of its material particles. If the reader, however, 

 will imagine a series of plates or ribs, to be placed be- 

 tween the threads of the screw, passing from one to 

 another parallel to the axis, he will easily perceive that 

 as the screw revolved, and each rib came in contact with 

 the flour, it would dig into it, pass it from one side of 

 the trough to the other, and partially lift it up past the 

 centre. Suppose a series of tubes or pipes to be placed 

 in a heating chamber, and each containing an Archime- 

 dean screw revolving slowly, and provided with the ribs 

 as above described, one tube communicating with the 

 other by means of shoots or conductors; if the grain to 

 be dried was passed into the upper tube, as it moved 

 along the ribs between the threads it would keep con- 

 tinually lifting it up and dropping it, until it was deli- 

 vered to the further end of the tube, from which it 

 would drop through a shoot to a second tube, in which 

 it would be subjected to another series of liftings and 

 droppings, till it was delivered to a third tube, 

 and so through a series of seven tubes. It is obvious 

 that every portion of each individual grain would be 

 subjected, not once only, but repeatedly to the ac- 

 tion of the heated surface of the tubes through which 

 it passed. In this machine, the invention of Messrs. 

 Robert Davison and James Scott Horrocks, the two 

 necessities involved by the standard or rule of dry- 

 ing already given are met. The regulation of the 

 temperature, or what amounts to the same thing, 

 the degree of drying, is attained by adjusting the 

 number of the tubes through the grain is to pass, and 

 the rate of revolution of the screws which work in them ; 

 for the greater the number of the tubes, the more heat- 

 ing surface there will obviously be ; and the slower the 

 number of the revolutions of the screws, the less fre- 

 quently will the grain be lifted up out of contact with 

 the heated surfaces, and the greater therefore will be the 

 amount of drying which they will receive. The second 

 requisite is also met by the means adopted of giving 

 movement to every individual grain as it passes through 

 the tubes. This movement, or lifting up, can be modified 

 in degree, by increasing or decreasing the number of the 

 ribs placed between the threads of the screws. 



Having shown how the first, the " preparative" pro- 



cess involved in the " preservation of grain for food 

 purposes" is effected, we now turn to that by which the 

 second or " preservative" is carried out ; that is, after 

 having dried our grain, let us see how we are to keep it 

 dry. 



The most obvious method to insure our grain being 

 kept dry, after having once made it so, is to store it up in 

 thoroughly dry and vermin-proof granaries ; but it is 

 not so obvious that in few cases indeed are granaries, 

 however well built, capable of giving either the dryness 

 or freedom from vermin which the necessities of the 

 case desiderate. To insure these requisites great ex- 

 pense in construction will be necessary, and it is doubt- 

 ful whether the most complete constructive arrange- 

 ments can give the freedom from atmospheric agencies 

 of a hurtful kind which is requisite. In the preserved 

 meat tin, in the lead-lined tea-chest of the Chinese, in 

 the housewife's canister, in which is stored up her 

 valuable commodities, in the corn-bin of the stable, 

 moreover, we have an example of what a good wheat- 

 store should be. True, with our preconceived notions of 

 granaries, it is difficult to look upon any plan, in which 

 this principle is carried out, with any other feeling than 

 that of surprise or ridicule. But a very slight consi- 

 deration will suffice to show that there is nothing 

 difficult of attainment in making air-tight canis- 

 ters to store wheat up in. On this very sub- 

 ject Mr Bridges Adams — to whose facile pen the 

 scientific world owes many suggestive hints and useful 

 plans — some years ago wrote a paper to show the feasi- 

 bility of storing up grain in the manner we have hinted 

 at. He says — "There can be no doubt that, if we were 

 to put dry wheat in a hermetically sealed tinned case, it 

 might be kept as long as the famed 'mummy wheat' of 

 Egypt. This will be readily admitted, but the expense 

 would be queried. Let us examine into this. A canister 

 is a metallic reservoir ; so is a gasometer, so is an iron 

 water-tank in a ship, at a railway- station, or elsewhere ; 

 and.a cubic foot of water-tank on a large scale will be 

 found to cost very much less than a cubic foot of canister 

 on a small scale. And if a bushel of wheat be more 

 valuable than a bushel of water, it will clearly pay to put 

 wheat in large canisters of iron. The wheat canister, in 

 short, should be a wrought-iron or cast-metal tank of 

 greater or less size, according to the wants of the owner, 

 whether for the farmer's crop or for the grain- merchant's 

 stock. * * The size of the reservoir should be pro- 

 portioned to the locality, and it should hold a specified 

 number of quarters, so as to serve as a measure of 

 quantity, and prevent the expense of meterage. * * 

 Granaries of this description would not occupy more than 

 one-thirdthecubicspace of those of the ordinary descrip- 

 tion, and the cost would be less than one-fifth." Such are 

 some of the advantages of this method of storing up 

 grain, as stated by Mr. Adams. About the same period 

 at which Mr. Adams promulgated this plan, a patent 

 was taken out by Peter Armand le Comte de Fontaine 

 Mereau, in which was claimed a method of storing grain 

 similar in principle. "The invention," as stated in 

 the specification, " consists in the use of closed metallic 

 chambers, serving as tubular granaries or receptacles for 



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