80 ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



of ownership of the grain is kept from the man who grades 

 it. He does not know whose grain he is grading; his 

 information is limited to the number of the car. 



" When the train is ready the work begins immediately. 

 A train consists of about forty-five cars, and the gang 

 should finish with it in less than one hour. The car 

 opener leads off, opening the car doors, and placing an 

 empty sample bag in each car. These bags are well 

 cleaned beforehand, so that no foreign matter shall be 

 mixed in the sample. 



" The sampler mounts the ladder, enters the car on 

 the top of the grain, and drives his probe into the grain 

 several times and at several points. He empties the grain 

 each time out of the probe on to a cloth laid on the grain 

 near the car door. 



" The space between the grain and the roof is not 

 deep. A line, called the load line, marked on the in- 

 side of the car, shows how deep the car should be loaded. 

 It sometimes happens that a car is loaded so full that a 

 fair sample cannot be taken. In such cases the fact of 

 the overloading is put on the ticket by the sign ' I.H.,' 

 which means ' hold for inspection.' Such cars are pro- 

 visionally inspected at Winnipeg. The car numbers are 

 sent to Fort William with instructions to inspect while 

 being unloaded. 



" Less frequently cars are ' plugged,' loaded, that is to 

 say, with intent to get some low grade grain past the 

 inspectors by concealing it somewhere in the car. The 

 sampler may discover the fraud, and if he does not the in- 

 spector at the terminal point usually does. Plugging is a , 

 losing game for the shipper, for the whole car is graded / 

 according to the quality of the worst grain found in it. ' 



" If the car is divided by partitions, a sample is taken 



