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IV. — Modern Improvements in Corn-Milling Machinery. By 
"W. Proctor Baker, Broomwell House, Brislington, near 
Bristol. 
It is a matter of common knowledge that within the last ten or 
twelve vears a complete revolution has taken place in the 
machinery used in this and in other countries for the purpose 
of grinding wheat when it is intended to produce flour for 
bread-making purposes ; but it is not so well known that with 
the machinery the system of manufacture has been completely 
changed. There has been in fact not a mere substitution of one 
\ machine for another, or of one series of machines for another 
j series, but there has been a change of the principle and mode 
i of procedure. It has been thought desirable to put a descrip- 
j tion of the existing general practice on record in the pages of 
this ' Journal,' more especially as the alteration of the milling 
1 process has had a very marked influence in dethroning our home- 
I grown wheats from their former place of preference, and placing 
\ them in one of inferiority of value in average seasons as com- 
pared with those imported from most foreign countries. 
The fact of the comparative depreciation is well known ; it 
is needless to waste space in adducing statistical proofs. It is 
notorious to all concerned that the new machinery and the new 
system are not so well adapted for the reduction of native 
wheats to flour as they are for treating the dryer and harder 
foreign varieties. If attention be In this place directed to the 
facts, and to the causes which stand in the way of the more 
ready use of native wheat in mills possessing equipments of the 
most recent machinery, it is to be hoped, on the one hand, that 
mill-owners may be stimulated to adapt their machinery more 
especially to the manufacture of native wheat, and that the inven- 
tive powers of milling engineers may be called upon to second 
their efibrts ; while, on the other hand, agriculturists may be led 
to see the necessity both of producing wheats of a quality and cha- 
racter better adapted than they have hitherto been to the require- 
ments of millers working, as nearly all of them are, under the new 
systems, and of delivering all wheats in hard diy condition. 
It is a great and an additional misfortune for growers of 
wheat in this country, in times when wheat has to be sold at 
prices less than the cost of its production, that their corn should 
be discredited in the markets by the largest buyers, and that 
its money value in comparison with foreign varieties should be 
reduced on account of the difficulties of its manufacture into 
flour. Setting all other interests aside, the importance to the 
milling trade itself of encouraging the home growth of wheat 
cannot be exaggerated, for by its use the employment of their 
VOL. XXIV. — s. s. G 
