38 Grain Screenings. 



season owing to the necessity of changing sieves for each different 

 kind and lot of grain received. Where wheat, oats, barley,' and flax 

 are being hauled to an elevator at the same time by several different 

 farmers it is quite impracticable to change the sieves in the cleaner for 

 each load. Farmers who can store their grain until after the busy 

 season can usually arrange to have a cleaner fitted up specially for 

 their grain and then haul all they have and clean and load it before 

 it is necessary to change or rearrange the sieves. 



That threshing machines as at present operated do not clean 

 grain satisfactorily is shown by the fact that nearly every carload 

 received at the terminals must be cleaned. If the grain could be 

 cleaned by the thresher it would effect an enormous saving to the 

 growers of the West. 



About 60 per cent of the screenings occurring in the grain pro- 

 duced could be used to advantage on the farm or sold for the feeding 

 of live stock. Even if they were not used for feeding, but were 

 burned on the farm, it would pay the producer to do this rather than 

 be put to the expense of handling and freighting them. 



It is believed that a cleaner of simple design and of comparatively 

 small cost of construction and operation could and should be used on 

 every threshing machine to remove the screenings which, otherwise, 

 are not removed until the grain is taken into the terminal elevator. 

 Such a: cleaner could be placed on top of the machine and the grain 

 pasfeed through it after being weighed and elevated. 

 ["'-■' The thresherman is entitled to payment for every bushel he 

 thteshes whether it is grain or weed seeds, and by the above arrange- 

 ment he would get credit for every pound of material threshed. 

 Cleaning the grain in this way would of course increase the cost of 

 threshing, but even then an enormous benefit would result to the 

 farmer, not only by a great reduction in the expense of handling and 

 transportation, but also through its value as a feed for livestock. 



The idea of operating an efficient cleaner as an attachment to a 

 grain thresher is not new. Cleaners are employed on threshers in the 

 Argentine Republic and Chili which receive machines from the same 

 American and Canadian firms as supply the prairie provinces. But 

 the manufacturers of these machines seem to have the impression 

 that the Canadian grain grower believes there is no advantage in 

 having his grain cleaned in threshing, and consequently does not want 

 even the ordinary cleaning screens supplied with the machines to be 

 used for this purpose. In the opinion of the manufacturers, threshing 

 machines as at present constructed might be operated to remove much 

 of the screenings now left in the grain. 



OPINIONS OF THRESHER MANUFACTURERS. 



The president of the National Association of Thresher Manufac- 

 turers of the United States says : — 



Q* , "The manufacturers of threshing machinery in both the 

 btates and Canada are perfectly willing to furnish with each 

 machine a cheat or dirt screen, and with proper use of the 

 same the operators of threshing machinery can take the most 



