34- SWINE IN AMERICA 



fed alone, but that a combination of corn and niiddhngs 

 proves 20 per cent more economical than middlings 

 alone. At a price around $25 a ton for middlings, it may 

 ordinarily be considered an expensive feed. 



]i should be stated that there is liable to be mis- 

 apprehension as to the use of the word middlings, and 

 that the meaning and analysis of this commodity as 

 known at the time of preparing this volume and as 

 understood, say up to twenty-five years before, are per- 

 haps quite different. Prior to the manufacturing of 

 Hour by the present or "roller" process, middlings was 

 a product in which there was retained a considerable 

 portion of the wheat's flour, that the old buhr process 

 of milling failed to separate from the outer or inter- 

 mediate bran. This made a quite rich, and when wet, a 

 very sticky mass or food. Millers say that under the 

 present system of flour making there is practically no 

 such product as the old-time middlings; instead, what 

 goes by that name is virtually but shorts or "mill-tail- 

 ings," and commercially the terms "shorts," "middlings" 

 and "shipstuff" now mean the same thing, which analy- 

 ses show as having about the same food elements as 

 bran (from the hard winter wheats), thus: Protein, 14 

 to 17 per cent; carbohydrates, 54 to 57 per cent; fat, 4 

 to 5 per cent. The same product from northern spring 

 wheats is given a rather lower valuation and sells at $1 

 to $1.50 less per ton. In spite, however, of what analy- 

 sis shows, the present-day shorts, middlings or shipstuff 

 sell in the markets for about 20 per cent more than bran, 

 due, it is claimed, to the fact that the finely ground 



