136 ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



bj far the largest customer. The rest of the flour is dis- 

 tributed throughout Canada for domestic consumption. 



The total number of flour mills in all Canada is YIO 

 with a daily capacity of 125,000 barrels of flour, of which 

 in the four provinces of western Canada, as we have seen, 

 there are 148 mills with a daily capacity of 36,000 bar- 

 rels. During the food crisis in the crop year 1917-18, 

 Canada supplied to the Allies in the great war 10,000,000 

 barrels of much needed flour in addition to her exports 

 of wheat. '^^ 



At the entry to the oflice of the Lake of the Woods 

 Milling Company, at Winnipeg, stands a quern which was 

 brought to western Canada from Russia by the Doukabors 

 about twenty years ago. As one looks upon it for the 

 first time, one straightway compares it in the mind's eye 

 with the great modern roller mill which the Company 

 owns at Keewatin. How curious and striking is the con- 

 trast ! The quern consists of two stones set one on the 

 top of the other in a solid wooden stand. The stand rests 

 on four stout legs and its top is thereby raised about two 

 and a half feet from the ground. The upper stone which 

 is pivoted upon the lower one, is flat above and below, 

 and is cylindrical in form. It measures fifteen inches in 

 diameter, is about five inches thick, and weighs upwards 

 of sixty pounds. In its center is a hole into which hand- 

 fuls of wheat used to be put so that the grain might pass 

 downwards between the stones. The upper stone was re- 

 volved by hand with the aid of a short handle ; and, as a 

 trial proved, a considerable amount of physical energy 

 must have been expended by the man or woman who 

 turned it. The flour produced by the grinding came out 

 laterally between the stones and passed down a groove in 



73 For the statistical information given above, I am indebted to the 

 'Northwestern Miller. 



