82 Modem Improvements in Corn-Milling Machinery. 
mills aud woi'kpeople is assured — home-grown wheat cannot be 
ground abroad — while they know to their cost that the tendency 
is more and more marked towards the import of bread-stuffs in 
the shape of flour ground in foreign mills, in place of wheat 
requiring to be ground in our home mills. 
It is worth while to insert the figui'es which display this 
tendency. Taking the cereal years for the period of five years 
ended in 1880, the imports of flour were 15"9 per cent, of the 
total imports of wheat and flour ; for the five years ended 1885, 
2o-2 per cent. ; for the two years ended 1887, 2o"4 per cent.; 
while for the last four months of the calendar year 1887 they 
were 31 "5 per cent. And these figures may be emphasised by 
the statement that the average yearly imports of wheat, speak- 
ing broadly, have increased but slightly in the last ten or twelve 
years. It follows, therefore, that, as there is no increase of foreign 
supplies of wheat, the mills of the country have lost emplovmeut 
annually to the extent involved in grinding the quantity by 
which the home crop of wheat has diminished, viz., in round 
numbers, about four millions of quarters. This explains why 
hundreds of mills in this country ai'e closed. 
In order to appreciate the importance of the changes which 
have occurred, it is necessary briefly to refer to the old process 
of converting wheat into flour. The first step was to attempt 
to clean the wheat from impurities, either adhering to the 
berries in the shape of dust or smut, or such as were mixed 
with the grain in the shape of chaff, or dust, or lumps of earth, 
and to separate from it seeds or grains other than those of 
wheat that were mixed with it. These operations were effected 
by somewhat primitive machines, designed for use in the ijeriod 
when wheats of home gi'owth formed the staple of the con- 
sumption of the mills ; and these wheats, thanks to agricultural 
machinery, the cleanliness of the soil, and the purity of the 
seed, our farmers were able to deliver in a comparatively clean 
state. In those times the public were far less critical than they 
are now as to the quality of the bread they ate, and the exist- 
ence of a certain dinginess of colour due to the presence of 
dust and dirt was not remarked, or if remarked was excused, 
especially in country districts. It was because home-grown 
wheats were very much cleaner than foreign that they especially 
monopolised the demand of small country mills, which were 
not, as a rule, furnished with any cleaning machinery, and thus 
were not able to deal with the great variety of foul foreigu 
wheats which appeared in the markets. These small mills have 
now, as a rule, been closed by the competition of the large mills, 
or, if kept in operation, have had their equipment improved, or 
are employed in grinding maize, barley, or other feeding-stuffs. 
