36 WHEAT CULTURE. 



CHAPTER VII. 



FLOUR THE FORM IN WHICH TO SELL WHEAT. 

 MILLING EMPLOYS MANY PERSONS. 



For several important reasons, all of our surplus wheat 

 should be sold or exported in the shape of flour. 



FIRST It will afford useful employment to a large 

 number of mechanics and others laborers here at home, 

 such as builders and operators of mills, coopers, and 

 others, in making barrels or other packages in packing 

 and putting up the packages, handling and hauling, be- 

 sides other incidental labor, not required in selling and 

 shipping whole wheat. The business and profits of feed- 

 ing, clothing, housing, and otherwise maintaining all of 

 these various operatives, inside and outside of the flour- 

 ing mills, are likewise very considerable. 



THE VALUE OF BRAN AND SHORTS. 



SECOND It will retain here at home the bran, shorts, 

 and other refuse, always produced in milling, whence it 

 can and always should go back to the farms and land 

 where wheat is produced, as fertilizers to the soil, 

 through feeding stock, to aid in preventing exhaustion 

 or "running down" of the soil. It is well known, and 

 is shown by various analyses, that the bran and straw 

 contain nearly all of the mineral or inorganic matter 

 which the wheat crop has derived from the soil. Conse- 

 quently those portions of the wheat plant do most towards 

 impoverishing the land and rendering it less capable of 

 producing a heavy crop of sound grain ; hence as much 

 as possible of the bran and straw should go back to the 

 laud. 



