386 FIELD CROP PRODUCTION 



are located at the large terminal markets, have immense 

 storage capacity and are usually located so as to be able 

 to receive or ship grain both by rail and by boat. The 

 operators of these elevators usually carry on two distinct 

 lines of business. They rent storage room to country 

 dealers or others who have grain they wish to store, and 

 they act as brokers, buying grain and reselling it. In this 

 line of business they may either resell immediately or very 

 soon after buying, or they may store the grain for a time, 

 awaiting a more favorable opportunity to sell. The 

 terminal elevators frequently mix large quantities of grain 

 of high grade with small quantities of poor grain, the mix- 

 ing being such as not to reduce the grade of the former. 

 This operation is one of the sources of profit. 



412. Grain inspection. — Buyers of grain at the ter- 

 minal markets buy it in such large quantities, sometimes 

 hundreds of thousands of bushels, that it is neither possi- 

 ble nor desirable for them to personally inspect each car 

 of grain they purchase. Since grain varies greatly in 

 quality, and since the quality has a direct relation to the 

 value of it, it is desirable that the purchaser as well as the 

 seller have some means of determining the quality of a 

 certain lot of grain without personally inspecting it. This 

 is made possible by a system of grain inspection in which 

 a lot of grain arriving at the terminal market is inspected 

 and given a grade by official inspectors. The grades are 

 so defined that the purchaser knows in a general way the 

 quality of the grain as determined by plumpness, hardness, 

 presence of foreign matter, weight per bushel, and other 

 qualities of importance in estimating its value. There 

 are usually four distinct grades. The method of de- 

 scribing the grades may be gained from the following 

 description of the grades of hard winter wheat : . 



