UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



^ BULLETIN No. 857 | 



jf^^Lrt. 



Contribution from the Bureau of Markets 

 GEORGE LIVINGSTON, Acting Chief 



S^^^^L. 



Washington, D. C. 



PROFESSIONAL PAPER 



June 25, 1920 



A MODIFIED BOERNER SAMPLER. 



By E. G. Boerner, In Charge, Grain Investigations, and E. H. Ropes, Specialist 



in Grain Investigations. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Introduction 1 



Description 4 



Operation 6 



Page. 



How to obtain the sampler. 

 Care of the device 



INTRODUCTION. 



The device described in this bulletin was developed primarily to 

 meet the demands of grain dealers and laboratory workers for a 

 cheap and simple method of securing from a larger sample to be 

 graded a smaller representative portion of grain for testing and 

 analyses purposes. Another application of the device, which should 

 be of special interest to the grain trade, is that a sample can be 

 divided into two or more representative parts, so that one representa- 

 tive part may be used for testing and grading and the other part or 

 parts may be turned over to the seller or the buyer of the grain, or 

 retained for future reference. It can also be used for reducing the 

 size of samples of seeds, flour, meal, feeds, or any other material of 

 like kind for examination or analyses. This device should be of 

 special interest to country grain dealers. A phantom view of the 

 device completely assembled in operation is shown in figure 1. 



The device (commonly known to the trade as the " Boerner Sam- 

 pler ") described in Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 287 was 

 developed primarily for the purpose of dividing an original sample 

 into smaller portions, which might be analyzed without the undue 

 loss of time incident to handling a large sample, and to make this 

 division in such a manner that each small portion would correctly 

 retain the original proportion of the various factors comprising the 



170658°— Bull- 857 — 20 



