FLOUH JIOTH. 61 



feet of air space. All doors, windows, and other openings should be 

 tightly closed before the sulphur and saltpetre are ignited." — ' Bulletin,' 

 p. 12. 



Precaution necessary in fumigation. — In application of sulphur fumes, 

 it is very necessary to attend carefully to amount that may be safely 

 used, or great loss may ensue consequently on alteration in the nature 

 of the flour through effect of fumes making it unfit for use. 



In an instance brought under my notice, very heavy fumigating 

 was carried out during three days when holidays, following on Sunday, 

 allowed work to be suspended. In these three days, five hundred 

 pounds of sulphur were burnt on two fires. The result was, as 

 reported to me, that, there being eighty or one hundred sacks of flour 

 left standing in the mill, the sulphur " penetrated right into these, and 

 acted on the gluten of the flour m such a manner as to apparently 

 break it up into soluble albuminoids, and render the dough made from 

 it more like a lot of weak putty than the ' strong ' dough our customers 

 require," 



Regarding this injured material, the chemist, in whose hands a 

 portion was j)laced for investigation, wrote me as follows: — "I am 

 engaged in examining samples of the damaged flour, which seems 

 irremediable. But the right treatment would certainly seem to be 

 exclusion from mill during fumigation of all flour and Corn, and 

 repetition of the fumigation at least once a week until a cure is effected, 

 the sulphur being used in indicated quantities. Only a manufacturer 

 can appreciate the trouble and expense of such interruption to regular 

 systematic mill-working, but there can be no question of the absolute 

 necessity of taking prompt steps, whatever the trouble may be." — ■ 

 (W. S. C.) 



If it were possible to alternate the grinding of other flour material 

 with that of Wheat in infested mills, remedial measures could at once 

 be carried out ; but where neither the arrangements nor the delicate 

 machinery of modern Wheat-milling allow of this, we are thrown on 

 necessities of slcilled care in preventing admission of attack, and the 

 very troublesome remedial measures if it does get in. 



The following notes, sent me on the 23rd of Oct. by a miller, from 

 a district which I had not previously heard of as infested, show just 

 the same characteristics of attack. Specimens had a short time before 

 been sent, which the miller noted as " of a certain moth which has 

 caused a great amount of inconvenience to the flour mills of this 

 country during this year." He further mentioned that the chief 

 source of inconvenience was due to the silky tissue, " which links, or 

 rather gathers, together flour and other stock, forming a sponge which 

 sometimes assumes such proportions that spouts are actually blocked 

 up. They are also a trouble at the feed rollers, as they make the feed 



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