78 MILLS. [1899 



each other on that matter, lest the travellers should give the informa- 

 tion to the customers, and much damage be done thereby. 



" However, hardly a miller has escaped without them, and we and 

 other two millers in . . . have had to take down almost the whole 

 mill machinery, and put the iron screws and other parts through fire 

 to clean them. The best-known remedy to us is mineral oil, but this 

 of course does not get at the maggot, and the fly keeps away from it. 

 However, it is a good help in keeping them from settling down. 

 Again, it is not a good remedy in a mill, so much use of oil ; it is 

 dangerous for fire, and you must keep it out of the way of flour 

 passages ; only external use. Irish lime is no use in a short time. 



"We can only keep the infestation under by laborious cleaning, 

 and this at a big sacrifice of flour. Mr. Henry Simon, of Manchester, 

 the chief milling expert of Britain, has been applied to many times by 

 millers, and cannot give any safe advice on the matter." 



A sample box containing specimens of the moth and maggot 

 causing the trouble referred to above was forwarded to me by the 

 writer, showing plainly that the infestation was that of the " Mediter- 

 ranean Mill Moth " [Ephestia kuhniella). 



On May 27th the writer further continued : — 



" With respect to the treatment of white- washing with fresh- slaked 

 lime and oil, that is our chief work with the fumigation by means of 

 sulphur in tubs in difl'erent parts of the mill, and all the doors and 

 windows closed, but this does not get to the inside of rhones and 

 screws, where they live chiefly. We are not troubled in our Wheat 

 stores, it is only in our roller mills, where the Wheat is ground and 

 dressed into flour, and they seem to propagate and thrive in the inside 

 of flour rhones, collecting-bins over the top of rollers, and in the seams 

 of the wooden floors, though there we get at them easily and destroy 

 them. Semolina in passing down rhones will sometimes receive the 

 eggs or germs of life, and after sitting for a few weeks in the sacks will 

 develop the maggot, which gathers a kind of fibre around it, even in 

 the centre of the sack. In flour also you will find it indicating that it 

 can live seemingly excluded from the air. 



" In the matter of steam, we have a three-inch pipe going up 

 through all our flats, with an opening to each flat, but this is only to 

 be used in case of fire. However, we tried it once during an alarm of 

 fire, and it did great damage to the silk cloths for dressing, and in 

 turning the dry flour in rhones and screws into paste, through the 

 condensation of the steam. 



"The test of heating the Wheat up to a temperature which would 

 destroy the eggs or germs of life seems a very easy plan, and while the 

 arrangement might be a little expensive at first, it might be the most 

 economical in the end. From the time we lift our Wheat ex- ship in 



