92 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



It is common now for owners of grain to get pay for the screenings 

 contained and it is more difficult to persuade them that it would be to 

 their financial advantage to leave the screenings on their own farms. 

 However, from the national point of view, the proper solution of this 

 problem is believed to be to keep the screenings on the farm where they 

 are produced. The portion possessing good feeding value should be 

 worth more to the Western livestock industry than to feeders over a 

 thousand miles away. This, being the least valuable product of the 

 grain grower, costs relatively the most for transportation. If in 1914 

 it cost $650,000 to get the screenings from the farm to the elevators, 

 it must now cost considerably more than $1,000,000 to take this 

 material from the point where it is produced to where it is fed in 

 Eastern Canada and the United States. 



The question of cleaning the grain before shipment has not been 

 studied exhaustively. It was learned, however, that relatively few of 

 the interior elevators, except those operated by farmers' co-operative 

 organizations, have cleaning machinery, and even where such facilities 

 are available the cleaning of grain hauled direct from the machine is 

 impossible during the rush season owing to the necessity of changing 

 sieves for each different kind and lot of grain received. Where wheat, 

 oats, barley, and flax are being hauled to an eleavtor at the same time 

 by several different farmers it is quite impracticable to change the 

 sieves in the cleaner for each load. Farmers who can store their grain 

 until after the busy season can usually arrange to have a cleaner fitted 

 up specially for their grain and then haul all they have and clean and 

 load it before it is necessary to change or rearrange the sieves. 



That threshing machines as at present operated do not clean grain 

 satisfactorily is shown by the fact that nearly every carload received 

 at the terminals must be cleaned. If the grain could be cleaned by the 

 thresher it would effect an enormous saving to the growers of the West. 

 See Appendix. 



It is believed that a cleaner of simple design and of comparatively 

 small cost of construction and operation could and should be used on 

 every threshing machine to remove the screenings which, otherwise, 

 are not removed until the grain is taken into the terminal elevator. 

 Such a cleaner could be placed on top of the machine and the grain 

 passed through it after being weighed and elevated. 



The thresherman is entitled to payment for every bushel he 

 threshes M^hether it is grain or weed seeds, and by the above arrange- 

 ment he would get credit for every pound of material threshed. Clean- 

 ing the grain in this way would of course increase the cost of threshing, 

 but even then an enormous benefit would result to the farmer, not only 



