THE STORAGE OF WHEAT 205 



it is even resacked after it has been cleaned by the elevators. 

 Undoubtedly one of the main reasons for this is found in the 

 climate.- During the summer season of the year, there is no 

 rain, and the sacked wheat needs no protection from the ele- 

 ments. If it is not shipped at once, it is piled up in huge piles 

 at the shipping points. This avoids the use and expense of 

 elevators, although it is sometimes piled in warehouses. The 

 platforms and warehouses are owned by the grain-buying firms 

 who collect the wheat for ultimate shipment. 



Storage of Wheat at the Primary Market. The capacity of 

 terminal elevators to handle and store grain is enormous'. Chi- 

 cago was perhaps the first city to develop great facilities in 

 this line, and it is partly to this that the city owed its early 

 pre-eminence as a grain center. Its first elevators were built 

 in the fifties. As early as 1867 Flint wrote that "7,000 to 

 8,000 bushels per hour of grain may be taken from a train of 

 loaded cars by a large elevating warehouse, and the same grain 

 at the other end may be running into vessels, and be on its way 

 to Buffalo, Montreal or Liverpool within six hours of time. The 

 Illinois Central Railroad grain warehouse can discharge 12 cars 

 loaded with grain, and at the same time load two vessels with 

 it, at the rate of 24,000 bushels per hour. ... It is capable 

 of storing 700,000 bushels of grain. It can receive and 

 ship 65,000 bushels in a single day, or it can ship alone 225,000 

 bushels in a day." All the warehouses of Chicago could store 

 an aggregate of 3,395,000 bushels, and it is further said : ' l They 

 can receive and ship 430,000 bushels in 10 hours, or they can 

 ship alone 1,340,000 bushels in 10 hours, and follow it up the 

 year around. In busy seasons these figures are often doubled 

 by running nights. "* By the end of the nineteenth century, 

 however, there were single elevators in Chicago with a storage 

 capacity greater than that of the entire city at the above writ- 

 ing. Some reached the high figure of four million bushels. 

 The public warehouse capacity of Chicago in 1900 was 28,- 

 600,000 bushels, and the private warehouse capacity was 28,- 

 645,000 bushels. At that date, five cars of wheat could be un- 

 loaded in eight minutes. In 1905 one of the Chicago elevators, 

 together with its annexes, had a capacity for storing 5,000,000 

 bushels. 



1 Eighty Yrs. Prog, of U. S., pp 75-76. 



