362 



GINSENG 



GRAIN • 



United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 

 No. 16 ; Daily Consular Reports for 1905, Nos. 

 2162, 2284, 2287, Department of Commerce and 

 Labor, Washington D. C; Monthly Reports of 

 Exports and Imports, Department of Commerce 

 and Labor (secured from Bureau of Statistics, 

 Washington, D. C). 



GRAIN: Shipping, Grading and Storing. Figs. 

 511-514. 



By C. S. Scofield. 



Before the middle of the last century, much the 

 larger part of the grain produced in the United 

 States was hauled to the mill by the farmer, and 

 was either sold to the miller or ground for a toll 

 charge and the product disposed of by the owner 

 afterward. The high specialization of milling pro- 

 cesses, involving more expensive milling plants, 

 the rapid extension of grain-producing areas, and 

 the development of railroads that offered a ready 

 means of transporting grain long distances from 

 the farm to the mill, have all taken place since 

 1850. The geographical separation of the grain- 

 field and the mill has necessitated the development 

 of a commercial system of moving grain from the 

 farm to the mill, of storing it en route or at desti- 

 nation, and of classifying or grading it so that 

 similar kinds may be kept together in transit and 

 in storage. 



In order to meet the needs that have arisen with 

 the rapid development of grain production and 

 milling in this country, American methods of hand- 

 ling, grading and storing grain have become more 

 complicated and extensive than those of any other 

 country. 



Shipping and handling grain. 



Instead of hauling his grain to the mill, the 

 farmer now hauls it to the nearest railway station 

 where there is an elevator or storage house, at 

 which it is weighed and graded ; and the farmer 

 either takes his pay for it on the basis of the day's 

 quoted price, or accepts a storage receipt which 

 states the quantity and grade of the grain deliv- 

 ered. This storage receipt may be converted into 

 cash at any time on the basis of the ruling market 

 price, subject, of course, to discounts for storage 

 and insurance charges. 



From the country elevator, the grain is shipped 

 in carload lots to central milling or distributing 

 points, where it is usually unloaded for storage in 

 large elevators, and from which it may be with- 

 drawn as needed, for either shipment or manufac- 

 ture. The machinery for moving grain in bulk has 

 been developed to such a degree of efficiency that 

 grain can be unloaded from a car or vessel and 

 placed in storage in an elevator for a quarter of a 

 cent a bushel. Machinery for cleaning and other- 

 wise improving grain in large quantities has also 

 been brought into use, so that the farmer no longer 

 finds it profitable to attempt to clean his grain 

 before marketing it. 



Nearly all the grain marketed in the United 

 States, east of the Rocky mountains, is handled in 



loose bulk after leaving the farmers' hands. It is 

 stored in large bins in elevators and hauled from 

 place to place in tight box-cars. This feature is 

 unique to the American grain business. In all 

 other parts of the world grain is handled almost 

 exclusively in sacks. Owing to the fact that it is 

 impossible to keep small lots of grain separate 

 when handled in bulk, it has been necessary to use 

 a system of classification or grading by which like 

 kinds and qualities can be kept together and recog- 

 nized as having a certain market value. 



Grading and inspecting grain. 



Like the custom of handling grain in quantity 

 without sacking, the system of classifying and 

 grading grain for commercial purposes is unique 

 to the American grain trade. This practice was 

 probably initiated by boatmen along the Chicago 

 river in carrying grain from Illinois farms to 

 Chicago. With the development of railroad traffic 

 in the upper Mississippi valley, the movement of 

 grain to Chicago and similar manufacturing and 

 distributing points caused this custom of classifi- 

 cation to spread rapidly. It soon came to be recog- 

 nized as a part of the business of the trade and 

 was. very quickly put on a semi-official basis. Rules, 

 or descriptions of grades, were made out and men 

 were employed to do the inspecting and grading 

 professionally. 



Complaints of irregularities and injustices from 

 various sources resulted in the transfer of the con- 

 trol of inspection and grading from the commer- 

 cial organizations to official state organizations in 

 some of the western states. Illinois, Minnesota, 

 Missouri and Kansas have long had state laws and 

 state commissions to conduct the work of inspect- 

 ing and grading, as well as weighing, while Wash- 

 ington and Wisconsin have laws and commissions 

 for the control of certain features of this work. 



The actual work of grain inspection and grading, 

 as now practiced, is much the same whether under 

 state control or under the control of commercial 

 organizations. There are two methods of doing 

 this work : one is by what is known as track in- 

 spection and the other is office inspection, while 

 sometimes a combination of the two is used. 



Track inspection. — When the inspection is done 

 on the track, a deputy inspector, with one or two 

 assistants, goes into the railroad yards early in the 

 morning every working day and opens such cars of 

 grain as he finds there destined for his market, the 

 names and numbers of these cars usually being 

 furnished by the railroad companies. Each car is 

 opened by one of the assistants and a sample of 

 grain is taken from it with a special sampling tube 

 and examined by the inspector, who determines the 

 grade, tags the car with name and number of the 

 grade, and closes it again, noting for his daily 

 report the number of the car and the grade 

 assigned. When the grain is destined for sale on 

 the market, a sample is usually taken from the car 

 and sent to the consignee for his information.. In 

 some markets practically every car is sampled and 

 the sample sent directly to the trading floor, where 

 it is shown for the information of buyers. 



