10 Gbain Screenings. 



The aim of the feeder is to get the sheep on a diet of corn as 

 soon as possible, but pure corn is too heavy a feed for the sheep, 

 and so the screenings are used as a sort of "filler." Formerly, 

 elevator screenings contained much shrunken and broken wheat, 

 oats, and barley, but with improved methods of recleaning the 

 screenings, practically all this material is removed, and only the 

 smaller weed seeds and chaff are available as screenings. When 

 corn is selling at $20 per ton, such screenings cost at the feeding 

 stations $10 to $12 per ton. On such feed the sheep usually gain from. 

 1 2 to 1 5 pounds during the first thirty days. After that they grain less 

 rapidly. Fifty thousand sheep will eat about two cars of screenings 

 and a car of corn per day. Seed-house screenings and screenings 

 containing a large proportion of broken flax are avoided. At Kirk- 

 land much of the manure accumulating in the sheds is hauled away 

 by farmers during the summer, and put into piles until fall. The 

 manure, when so piled, "heats" and the vitality of many of the 

 weed seeds which have become mixed with the manure is destroyed. 

 Farmers who have used this manure admit that large numbers of 

 weeds make their appearance after its application. Its use, however, 

 has not resulted in any serious spread of noxious weeds. This is. 

 explained by the two following circumstances: — 



1. In that district, as in other parts of Illinois and 

 neighbouring states, large quantities of corn are grown. This 

 sheep manure is put on corn ground, and. by constant cul- 

 tivation of the corn the weeds are destroyed before they can 

 mature seeds. 



2. Practically all of the farms around Kirkland are 

 worked by tenants, and as rents are high and land valuable,, 

 the careless and slovenly farmer is crowded out. 



It must be admitted that the farms are all practically free from, 

 noxious weeds, although one meadow was seen to be badly con- 

 taminated with tumbling mustard, very probably introduced through 

 screenings. Although the use of this manure has resulted in no- 

 very serious spread of weeds, its use undoubtedly involves consider- 

 able risk of introducing some of the worst weeds the farmer has to 

 fight. At Montgomery and Stockdale, the American Guano Com- 

 pany has put up factories where the sheep manure is dried and pul- 

 verized, and from it is made a fertilizer used largely on golf links, 

 country estates, market gardens, etc. 



The Manufacture of Mixed Feeds. — Another use that is made of 

 elevator screenings is in the manufacture of rdixed feeds, chiefly 

 molasses feeds. Usually it is' only the finest weed seeds and smaller- 

 pieces of broken wheat and flax that are used in these feeds. Mills, 

 that make a speciality of handling screenings are equipped with, 

 cleaning machinery which separates all the whole kernels of wheat, 

 barley, oats, or flax that the elevators have failed to remove. Straw 

 and chaff are taken out of the screenings at the same time as this, 

 separation is made. The material left after these grains are re- 

 moved is separated into two grades by means of the one-fourteenth 

 inch perforated zinc sieve. The material passing over this screen. 



