114 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
“In the year 1883 the writer was employed as bookkeeper with the 
party who operated the first grain elevator built in Brandon, Man., 
and in 1884 went into the grain business on his own account, and we 
were in Brandon till 1897 when we moved to Winnipeg. 
“The shipment referred to was made about October, 1884. It 
consisted of a single carload of 1 Nor. Wheat, 667 bus., the largest 
capacity cars then being 40,000 lbs. The wheat was in sacks, and 
was shipped direct from Brandon by C. P. R., to Port Arthur (Fort 
William was not in existence then), thence by C.P.R. lakeboat to 
Owen Sound, then on to Montreal by C. P. R., and thence to Glasgow 
by an Allan Line boat. It was shipped on a through B/L issued by 
the C.P.R., and the most notable thing about it was that it left Bran- 
don and was delivered in Glasgow in exactly twenty-one days. At 
that time such excellent despatch was something to speak about. We 
have no records now of the exact date of the shipment, or the price, 
and what we are giving you is from memory. We had for a year pre- 
vious been shipping wheat in sacks to Ontario millers, and we had been 
keeping up a correspondence with friends in Glasgow (Messrs. Dunlop 
Brothers), about shipping wheat to them, and so when we made this 
shipment, there seemed nothing remarkable about it, or perhaps 
permanent records of particulars could have been preserved. 
During the years 1885 to 1892, we were continuous shippers of 
wheat in sacks to Glasgow and Liverpool. Ordinary two-bushel jute 
sacks were used, and when emptied the sacks were calendered, baled 
and returned to us. They made usually three to four trips back and 
forth, until they became too much worn, when they would be sold on 
the other side for about a fifth of what they cost originally. 
With the gradual increase in grain production, and the increase 
in country elevators and terminal facilities, and the inspection system, 
shipping in bulk became the practice, and the shipping in sacks became 
obsolete. It was a fine clean business, however, so long as it lasted.’ , 
AN EXPERT ON THE 1915 CROP 
Professor John Bracken, Professor of Field Husbandry of the 
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, has given the writer of 
this paper his opinion on the main causes contributing to the large 
crop of 1915. From his report, based on experiment and observa- 
tion, the following is abstracted. The specific question was as to 
the relative importance of the three factors, tillering, or number of 
heads per plant, size or length of heads, and weight or plumpness of 
grains in the head. He writes:— | 
“We believe that all three of the points you mention were in- 
creased in most fields in 1915 over the previous year. We think 
