718 
Sale of Corn by WeigJit. 
state of the question, since it is one wMcli is likely to attract 
considerable public attention in the near future. 
Both Mr. Chaney in his evidence, and Dr. Gilbert, F.R.S., 
in a letter addressed to me as chairman of the Committee, and 
published in its Proceedings, speak in favour of sales of grain 
by weight. Mr. Chaney, answering a question of mine, says 
that, " speaking generally, but with no desire in any way to 
suggest legislation, as my own individual opinion, and not the 
opinion of my department, I think there can be no doubt that 
weight is better than measure" (Q. 29). And, in reply to a 
further question by Mr. Seale Hayne, Mr. Chaney says, 
" Judging from one's experience of what has happened in the 
sale of other commodities, I have no doubt in my own mind 
that it would be far better, and that it would avoid a great 
amount of trickery, if all corn for wholesale purposes was re- 
quired to be sold by weight only " (Q. 124). Dr. Gilbert, summing 
up the results of three elaborate memoranda which he had prepared 
on different aspects of the question, observes, " The facts and 
statements embodied in the [above] documents forcibly illustrate 
the importance of adopting a uniform weight for the sale of 
wheat, whether home grown or imported, and, mutatis mutandis, 
for the sale of other descriptions of gi'ain or corn." Dr. Gilbert ex- 
presses the opinion that the weights adopted should have reference 
to long-recognised measures. "There would, of course," he says, 
speaking as a statistician, " be some advantage in adopting some 
uniform weight, such as the hundredweight, for all desci'iptions of 
corn, especially if such weight sufficiently corresponded with the 
recognised or adopted weights used in foreign countries. But 
our hundredweight corresponds with I'OIG Zollverein centner, 
and to 50'8 kilogrammes, or 2 cwt. to lOl'G kilogrammes; and 
these differences, which amount to nearly 2 per cent., are too 
great to allow of the use of the hundredweight and these foreign 
weights intei'cliangeably, i.e., without allowance or calculation, in 
international transactions or statistics." His conclusion, therefore, 
is in favour of a bushel of uniform weight for the sale of each 
description of corn, whether home grown or imported. ■> 
especially appreciated by the Army Service Corps, who use it at Woolwich. The 
latter is a small instrument 10 inches long packed in a case, which any farmer 
can use to test the quality of grain. (5) An account of experiments on the 
vertical and lateral pressures of granular substances, by Mr. Isaac Roberts, 
F.R.S., from the Proceedings of the Royal Society, 188.^, Vol. XXXVI. No. 229, 
in wliich he shows results contradictory to our knowledge of the laws govern- 
ing the flow and pressures of fluids. (6) Papers by Dr. Gilbert and Sir John 
Lawes, Bart., of Kothamsted, on the adopted weight per bushel of home and 
foreign wheat, on the adopted estimates of the amount of wheat the imported 
wheatmeal and flour represent, and the methods of obtaining and recording 
the agricultural produce statistics. — R. J. M, 
