Grain Screenings. 



The rapid increase during the last few years in the acreage brought 

 under cultivation in the Prairie Provinces, and the system of con- 

 tinuous cropping to cereals year after year has allowed a great variety 

 of annual weeds to become widely established. 



An idea of the extent to which grain is sometimes contaminated 

 by weed seeds may be had from the following analysis of a sample 

 of a car of western-grown flax. The weed seeds made up 16 per cent of 

 the total weight of the car. One ounce contained the following weed 

 seeds: Noxious. — Hare's-ear mustard 73, stinkweed 106, wild 

 mustard 1051, western false flax 429, round-seeded false flax 170, 

 tumbling mustard 1009. Other kinds. — Lamb's quarters 152, cinque- 

 foil 10, black bindweed 14. 



A sample representing over 25,000 bushels of wheat contained 

 only 92-6 per cent by weight of pure wheat, the remainder being 

 made up largely of weed seeds, chiefly wild oats, black bindweed, 

 and lamb's quarters. These may be extreme cases, but samples as 

 badly contaminated as the above are by no means rare. 



Dockage. 



Most of the grain entering commerce is shipped eastward. 

 At Winnipeg it is graded, and on its arrival at Fort William or Port 

 Arthur is taken into the terminal elevators and stored according 

 to grade. That is, grain of the same grade is binned together. 

 It often happens that a carload of grain contains too high a proportion 

 of weed seeds and other impurities to be binned with the grade to 

 which its quality entitles it. In such cases the grain is graded 

 according to its quality and a dockage set representing the percentage 

 by weight of impurities which must be removed by the cleaners 

 before it is binned. 



The total dockage set by the Inspection Department, Board of 

 Grain Commissioners, Department of Trade and Commerce, on the 

 wheat, oats, barley, and flax received by terminal elevators for the 

 year ending August 31, 1913, exceeded 100,000 tons. 



The Saskatchewan Grain Markets Commission placed the cost 

 of hauling wheat from the farm to the railway station at 5 cents per 

 bushel, local and terminal elevator charges at 2| cents, and average 

 freight rates from Saskatchewan points to Fort William at 12 cents 

 per bushel, making total charges of 191 cents per bushel, or $6.50 

 per ton. 



Taking Saskatchewan points as average location for the Prairie 

 Provinces, the charges on 100,000 tons of screenings at $6.50 per ton 

 amount to $650,000. These charges must be met by the grain sold, 

 and therefore represent a loss to the growers. The feeding value 

 of the screenings is a further loss, which will be considered later. 



