146 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I9O3. 



It is estimated that the American people consuinc annually 357 

 pounds of bread per capita.* This is equivalent to about 260 

 pounds of flour, or one and one-third barrels. In dietary studies 

 of the inmates of the hospitals of the insane of New York state f 

 it was found that 10 hospitals with nearly 25,000 patients and 

 attendants, used a total of 6,000,000 pounds of flour. This is 

 equivalent to 240 pounds, or one and one-fourth barrels of flour 

 for each person. 



Assuming the accuracy of these figures from two distinct 

 sources, the 60,000 people of Aroostook county could use all the 

 flour which the mills now established there could produce. 

 These mills, however, are not run at anything like their full 

 capacity. The wheat crop of 1901 was probably as large as any 

 that Aroostook county has harvested, yet even this crop was not 

 sufficient to employ these mills to more than one-third their 

 capacity. 



The essential difference between these mills and the larger 

 establishments of the Northwest is in the number and size of the 

 stands, the consequent number of breaks, and the closeness wi^h 

 which the final products are graded. With a good quality of 

 wheat and expert milling these mills should turn out as good 

 product as larger plants. 



Aroostook Flour Compared with Western Flour. 

 In 1900 the Station collected and analyzed samples of flour 

 from three of the mills in Aroostook county. The tables which 

 follow give the results of the analyses of these flours together 

 with those of the samples since received from the mills of 

 E. Merritt and Sons of Houlton, and of six samples of three 

 brands of flours milled at Minneapolis. In the first table the 

 results are calculated to the water content of the flours as 

 received at the laboratory. As the flours vary somewhat in the 

 amount of water which they contain, the results are calculated 

 in the second table to a water-free basis. 



♦American Miller, March ], 1901. 



t W. O. Atwater, Report of Dietaries for Hospitals for the Insane, 10th Annual 

 Report of the New York State Commission in Lunacy. 



