504 Barley from a Maltsters Point of View. 
floor, and on the kilns, and the brewer is far more exacting in 
his requirements in the manufacture of malt than formerly, so 
that the maltster's powers are severely taxed to produce the best 
possible article from the material he has to deal with. To treat 
the grain with advantage, it is necessary to have well constructed 
maltings, and to this end I may personally claim to have made 
many considerable improvements. I will now describe the pro- 
cess that the barley undergoes after it has passed through the 
screening and cleaning machinery already noticed, which is the 
most perfect and effective yet constructed. By its means the 
bulk is greatly improved, and is then in a fit state for the first 
stage of malting, viz. the cistern. 
In most cases cisterns are constructed upon the ground- 
floor of the malting. Consequently, when the barley has under- 
gone the required amount of steeping, say from 50 to 60 hours, 
it is drained and removed from the cistern by manual labour 
with shovels on to the growing floor. This process causes a 
serious amount of damage, as the men are obliged to stand upon 
the soft and swollen grain during the whole of the time required 
to empty the cistern, and they cannot possibly avoid crushing 
some of it during the unloading. Every kernel that is so 
damaged produces mould during its growth on the floors, and this 
spreads afterwards to the other grain. To remedy these evils, 
and to save the hardest labour in the malting, I planned a self- 
emptying steeping cistern with a cone-shaped bottom. These 
cisterns are placed on the upper floors, and are emptied by means 
of a valve at the bottom of the cistern, so that after the barley 
has undergone the necessary steeping, it is let down by means 
of iron shoots on to the difierent growing floors, thus saving 
all manual labour, and damage to the grain. This method cf 
emptying does not occupy more than a few minutes, against two 
or three hours by the ordinary process. So much does the 
maltster value the necessity of avoiding all friction by which 
the grain may become damaged, that we have also constructed 
such machinery as will convey the barley from the railway and 
farmers' waggons by elevators to the granary floor and thence 
on to canvas conveying bands ; and by a simple but ingenious 
contrivance, we are able to shoot off" the gi'ain into the cistern or 
to any desired part of the extensive barley stores without the 
slightest handling. 
The barley, after it has left the cistern, is then laid on the 
floors to a sufiicient thickness (varying according to the tem- 
perature of the season) for generating the necessary amount of 
warmth to stimulate the germination of the grain. This is a 
point that requires great care, as any excess of temperature is 
