53 



*>f the rest- of the system of transport, and handling of 

 als: the parties, the Tain speculators, interested in 

 11 elesators not heinjr extended throughout the conn- 

 tYv. avail themselves nevertheless of the must modern 

 ,in'd best machinery in the operation of their own plants. 

 or of those which they rent for the needs of theiV busi- 

 ness. 9 



At the present, time the whole task of preparing 

 ilie irrain for shipment, the, cleaning:, drying, grading is 

 performed, "if at all, by the elevators at the ports, which 

 done in all the Republic are fijted out with proper ma- 

 chinery for such work. 



* \, 



MODERN ACCOMMODATION FOR CEREAL 

 SHIPMENTS. 



A great part of this labour would be accomplished 

 % the local elevators and therefore the real labour of the 

 port or transporting elevators would be to see that rapid 

 and economical methods were introduced for tfye handling 

 of the grain on shipment. Despite the efficiency of the 

 elevators in existence to-day in our ports, one has only 

 to compare them with the magnificient installations made 

 in the United States or .Canada to understand how de- 

 plorably behindhand we are even at our best. 



To cite one port alone, that of Montreal, where there 

 is accommodation for berthing twenty ocean-going ships 

 at the same time, the elevators there are capable of dis- 

 charging the railway wagons (60 ton American wagons) 

 -at the rate of one a minute, and reloading the grain into 

 the ships for transport abroad at the rate of six thou- 

 sand tons an hour. This means to say that the whole 

 crop of the Argentine Republic could be handled by this 

 one group of elevators, and sent abroad in less than a 

 snonth. 



The present deposits of the port of Montreal for 

 grain exceed in capacity 200,000 tons er one twentieth of 

 the total crop of this country and they are being ex^ 

 tended: a few hundred miles away at Fort William and 

 at Tiffin, .the head lines of the Grand Trunk Pacific Rail- 

 way, there are erected and under construction elevators 

 to hold over one million tons^r one fourth of our crop an- 

 nually. Canadian ports alone can handle and store the 

 whole of the Argentine crop. In Chicago and Duluth 

 there are elevators sufficient to hold the harvest of the 

 Argentine Republic for five years. The group of grain 

 deposits owned. by the North Western Railway has a 

 capacity exceeding three hundred thousand tons ; slightly 



