Conclusions. 41 



than is ordinarily done, the thresherman should be in a position 

 to give good service. Threshing machine manufacturers are ready 

 to do what they can to lessen the waste entailed in shipping dirty 

 grain. The black seeds (those that will come through a one- 

 fourteenth inch perforated zinc screen) have considerable value as 

 fuel and where coal is used they can be burned to advantage. 



THE MILLEB. 



Perhaps no one interested in the grain business would be more 

 pleased to see only clean grain marketed than the miller. To him 

 weed seeds and other impurities are a nuisance whose separation 

 adds considerable to the cost of milling. To clean the weed seeds 

 'from wheat as thoroughly as is essential in flour milling, involves the 

 separation of more good grain than does cleaning in elevators, and 

 mill screenings consequently contain a much higher percentage of 

 wheat than do elevator screenings. 



If he grinds his screenings fine enough to destroy the vitality 

 of all the noxious weed seeds, the miller is within his legal rights 

 in mixing this pulverized material with his by-products, provided 

 that such admixture does not alter their chemical composition to 

 such an extent that they no longer comply with the requirements 

 of the Feeding Stuffs Act. As pointed out on page 12, elevator 

 screenings containing the finer black seeds cannot be properly ground 

 by an ordinary chopper but require special machinery expensive 

 in itself and costly to operate. Where such machinery is not in- 

 stalled, it is necessary to reclean the screenings over a one-fourteenth 

 inch perforated zinc screen before grinding. It is not difficult then 

 to destroy the vitality of all seeds in the recleaned screenings. Experi- 

 ments indicate that the increase in the feeding value due to the 

 separation and discarding of the black seeds is sufficient to pay the 

 cost of their separation. 



The Dominion and Provincial Departments of Agriculture 

 receive each year many complaints of the death or serious injury 

 to the health of animals which the owners of the stock attribute 

 to the feeding of bran, shorts and chop-feeds. Analysis often reveals 

 the presence of certain ground and unground weed seeds, sometimes 

 in considerable quantities. While nothing in our experiments in- 

 dicates that the screenings fed were poisonous or injurious in any 

 way, it must be remembered that the material used in the 

 experiments represented as accurately as possible the average run of 

 elevator screenings. It is quite probable that some of the compara- 

 tively rare seeds have toxic properties, and screenings from individual 

 cars of grain containing considerable quantities of them may have 

 injurious effects, because of indigestible or poisonous qualities. 



In the manufacture of feeding stuffs by the blending of by- 

 products in the large flour mills, the practice of mixing pulverized 

 black seeds with other materials can scarcely be said to be in the 

 best interests of the feeder, and millers should give serious considera- 

 tion as to whether or not it is in their own best interests. It is also 



