Seed Wheat. 51 



I think our merchants would do well to make inquiry among the manufacturers of 

 grading machinery in Hungaria, France, Germany, and America, and stick less closely to 

 English models. If they will do this with an eye solely to merit and cost, I feel sure 

 that they will be able to introduce a better grade of this class of machinery than has ever 

 been sold here, and one that should command sales among farmers because of its efficiency 

 and moderate price. 



Sieves and their Meshes. 



A mechanical difficulty of considerable importance connected with wheat grading 

 machinery is that of keeping the meshes clear. The grains tend to pass through as small 

 a mesh as possible and this tendency causes them to bind in the meshes that are a 

 fraction too small for them, and they thus accumulate in the meshes of the machine and 

 clog its action. The best machines are provided with some mechanical means for meeting 

 this difficulty without breaking the grain, and no machine can now-a-days be considered 

 efficient without some such device. 



The meshes of the screens now in use for grain sieves are made of woven wire, of metal 

 rods, or of perforated sheet metal. 



The wheat mesh that finds most favour is an elongated mesh made from sheet metal 

 by means of perforating machines. The sieves made in this manner are very accurate 

 and uniform, durable, and not likely to get out of order. They are easy to repair, and 

 have a high degree of efficiency, and are withal as low in price as any other equally good 

 form. 



Woven wire meshes have the disadvantage that they are difficult to manufacture in a 

 form sufficiently accurate for the work of grading, and if so made are liable to get out of 

 order unless used with great care. As soon as the wire composing the meshes gets bent 

 of broken, accurate work becomes impossible. 



Sieves having meshes made by placing at stated distances metal rods or plates may be 

 made very accurate in the mesh if the rods or plates are supplied with bearings at short 

 distances so as to prevent the possibility of bending. Their disadvantages are the thick- 

 ness of the mesh, if one may so speak of it that is to say, the distance the grain has to go 

 in passing through the mesh. If this distance is a sixteenth of an inch or more, there is 

 greater liability that the meshes will clog in use. A second disadvantage is the amount 

 of metal required by the method of construction, which leads to increased cost and makes 

 the machine heavy to handle and harder to run. 



The sieves made of thin perforated metal have the most accurate meshes and the 

 thinnest meshes, and do the most accurate work. Since the perfecting of the modern 

 perforating machines, and the adoption of perforated metal plates for a multitude of 

 different purposes, the cost of this class of sieve has been reduced until it now ranks as one 

 of the lowest in price. These perforation sieves are not liable to get out of order. This 

 combination of accuracy, low price, and durability is a powerful one and has led in recent 

 years to a very wide use of this class of sieve. The meshes are thin and as little likely 

 to clog as any that can be constructed. These sieves have the disadvantage of a slightly 

 slower action on account of the fact that the area occupied by the meshes is propor- 

 tionally smaller than in screens made either of woven wire or metal rods. 



Taking it all round, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that at the present time the 

 perforated metal sieve is the most satisfactory and accurate form for use on the farm. 



There is another class of grader in wide use in flour mills that has sometimes been 

 offered to the farming community as a farm implement, and may, therefore, deserve a 

 little notice. It consists of a hollow cylinder, the inner surface of which is studded with 

 pits of such a character as to receive only grain of a certain size. A further sorting 

 mechanism separates these grains from the others, and thus the grading is accomplished. 

 These machines are highly specialised and expensive. They are almost indispensable for 

 certain work necessary in milling and malting, but have not, for the reasons stated, come 

 much into use as a farmer's machine. 



The grading accomplished by these machines is very perfect, and it is often by the,- 

 and other very special machines that the grading will be done for the farmer if he takes 

 his grain to a miller to be graded. These remarks are inserted here lest any novice in 

 the subject should infer that grain can be graded only with the aid of the class of 

 machine specially described in these pages. 



Grading Machines of Various Types. 



In order to illustrate the principles laid down in the foregoing paragraphs, the adjacent 

 illustrations of a grading machine made in Kalk, near Cologne, may be consulted. (Figs. 

 33 and 34.) It is of a type manufactured in several countries, and is selected because it is 

 one of the best of its kind. It is a hand or power machine, of a size suitable for farmers, 

 and may be had with or without the blower attachment. It is constructed entirely in 

 metal, and is compact and solid. The weight is from 300 K>. to 600 lb., according to size. 



