THE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



shown were the most general, the stone being 

 sketched in the steam mills of Mr. Hampton at 

 Heathfield. What is called the "draft" (or 

 inclination) of the " leading " furrows is laid 

 out from a central circle of about four and a half 

 inches diameter for a four-feet stone, and the 

 width of the furrows in proportion to that of 

 the "lands" or raised flat portions is about as 

 two to three. So far there is nothing peculiar ; 

 but instead of these " lands " being " cracivcd," 

 or dressed into parallel fine grooves as for flour 

 milling, they arc "stitched" or covered all over 

 with little pits by hand strokes of a very sharp- 

 pointed hard steel pick, as shown in the figure. 

 The surface or space round the eye of the 

 stone is somewhat lowered or hollowed as usual, 

 that the grain may enter freely and get cracked 



Fig. 66. — Stone Dressed for Grinding Oats. 



before being ground between the closer surfaces 

 as it travels outwards. 



This is the essential characteristic of the' 

 oat-grinding Sussex stones, but there are minor 

 differences, as above hinted. Around Uckfiekl 

 they seem to like a very fine and smooth meal. 

 More immediately round Heathfield most of the 

 fatters rather disliked this, preferring a some- 

 what coarser grain which can be felt between the 

 finger and thumb, but still with no visible husk, 

 in it ; they considered that this kept the bowels! 

 in better order. In the Buxted mill the stones 

 were accordingly dressed with a lighter pick, 

 run low or close together, and left smoother 

 round the margin ; thus the grain is cracked by 

 the inner zone, ground by the middle zones, and 

 the meal " smoothed " just before delivery. The 

 result was a meal nearly as fine as flour, but not 

 in the least what is termed "killed," and the 



stones were run at about 130 revolutions per 

 minute. At Edenbridge in Kent they also use 

 the light fine dress, and grind pure oats into the 

 finer meal. The Heathfield stones were dressed 

 coarser, with a heavier pick ; but there was a 

 further difference in the milling, due to the same 

 desire for a rather coarser-grained meal. The 

 running stone was adjusted rather higher, or at 

 a greater distance, so that the meal came out 

 with a certain small portion of unground husk 

 in it. This was automatically sifted out and 

 returned between the stones along with the 

 unground grain, which it assists, and is the 

 second time entirely ground, so that none is 

 taken out in the end. This method is supposed 

 to yield certain advantages, and the stones in 

 this mill were stated to be run at 170 revolu- 

 tions. In the mill at Rye, by means of belt- 

 driven machinery, 200 revolutions are now 

 attained. 



It will be understood that under these cir- 

 cumstances products and prices are not quite 

 uniform. In the district itself meal is chiefly 

 sold by the " quarter " of two sacks. Taking 

 for illustration the two mills just mentioned, in 

 the Buxted mill, turning out very fine meal, 

 ground pure, they were grinding oats weigh- 

 ing 39 lbs. per bushel, while the meal weighed 

 32 lbs. per bushel (or was at least weighed out as 

 32 lbs. for a bushel) and was sold (September, 

 1900) at 1 8s. per quarter of eight bushels, or 

 256 lbs. At the Heathfield mill, producing meal 

 rather coarser in grain as preferred in that dis- 

 trict, with the slight mixture of barley, they were 

 grinding 40 lbs. American oats, and selling the 

 meal at 30 lbs. per bushel, for i6s. to 17s. per 

 quarter of 240 lbs. Prices would of course vary 

 at both mills according to the market. 



Of the mixture described by Mr. Brown 

 above, of oats with barley and maize, a great 

 deal is also ground and used in Sussex, and we 

 were at much pains to ascertain the 

 Choice of comparative results. Our opinion 

 Meal and Fat. was decided, at the end, that as 

 compared with ground oats, the 

 mixed meal does not pay, in spite of its lower 

 price. We found this the opinion of almost all 

 the moderately small fatters, who combined in- 

 telligence with personal knowledge of the details 

 of their own business: they "could do better" 

 with the pure oats, or what passes for pure (fcr 

 all agreed that the very small portion of barley 

 mentioned above was quite as good if not better). 

 But we also made personal comparisons. These 

 were necessarily based upon " carrying in the 

 eye " a certain size or class of chicken, since we 

 could not ask busy men to weigh birds for us. 

 But doing this as well as we could, we came 



