100 
AMERICAN AGRIUULTUIUST. 
[March, 
in the proper place by the punch, -when the per- 
foration of the cartilage is the work of an in- 
stant. During the operation the animal is 
powerless, f»r the handles of the punch being 
curved and made with knobs at the ends fur- 
nish a very secure means of holding him while 
the separator, the cleaned grain runs through 
spouts into hoppers or bins, in which it is stored, 
or from whence it is passed through the pipes 
seen in fig. 2 to the stones. Here it is ground, 
and the meal, considerably heated by the fric- 
tion of the stones during the process of grind- 
passes, upon which tin cups are fastened. The 
strap passes over a pulley at the top and an- 
other at the bottom of the elevator, and as the 
cups pass up they scoop up the flour as it 
pours into the box at the bottom and carry it 
upwards, throwing it out as they pass over the 
Fig. 1.— SEl'ABATOB. 
the ring is being made ready. The hole being 
perfectly round too, heals again very quickly, 
and can not tear open as a three-cornered hole 
might do. The operation of ringing should be 
performed before a bull becomes a year old. 
Then he is always in a state of subjection, and 
not knowing what it is to successfully resist his 
keeper is not so apt to try to do it as when older. 
The Flouring-Mill. 
Much of the grain which arrives at the East- 
ern ports is ground into flour for consumption 
or for export to foreign countries. Some of 
the, flouring mills engaged in this business are 
ing, is cooled by being' carried up through an 
elevator two or three stories above to the bolts, 
fig. 3. The bolts consist of long reels covered 
with very fine and costly silk cloth. This 
bolting cloth is made only in Holland, and is 
of various degrees of fineness. Each long reel 
is covered with cloth of three qualities in such 
a way that the bolt is divided into three parti- 
tions as it were. Through the first of these 
the finest flour is sifted ; the second separates 
the second quality or coarse flour ; and the third 
the shorts, middlings, or fine "mill stuff," 
which is either taken by a spout or conveyed 
into the stones and ground over, or it is kept 
apart to be sold for feed. In the largest mills 
there are three separate bolts or reels, as seen 
upper pulley into other spouts. The convey- 
ers are horizontal pipes or spouts, in which 
rods furnished with screws similar to the pro- 
pellers of steamboats push the flour along. 
The packers are large conical receivers into 
which the finished flour is gathered. The bar- 
rels are placed beneath them, and as the flour 
pours into the barrels a revolving screw presses 
the flour down closely into them until they are 
filled. -They are then weighed, 196 pounds of 
flour being put into each one, and are headed 
up. The last operation the flour undergoes is 
inspection. The inspector bores a hole through 
the head of the barrel, inspects the quality of 
the contents, and marks the appropriate brand 
upon the head. It is not necessary, however, 
Fig. 3. — BOLTING MACHINE. 
very large, and turn out several hundreds of 
barrels of flour daily, a few even grinding a 
thousand barrels or more every twenty-four 
hours. The accompanying illustrations repre- 
sent the interior of one of these mills of a com- 
paratively moderate size. Generally the mill 
is a solid brick or stone structure of six or seven 
stories. The grain is elevated to the top story, 
where it is passed into the smut machine, in 
which it is separated from the dust and fine 
dirt. From thence it passes through a spout 
into the separator or screen, in which it is freed 
from all shrunken grain and all the large 
foreign matter. Generally these two opera- 
tions are performed by a combined machine as 
shown in figj 1, After having passed through 
in fig. 3, and the meal passes from one to an- 
other, being separated in its passage into the 
various qualities described. Very frequently 
the bran is ground over again, so that every 
particle of the flour of the grain is separated 
from the husk. Although the flour thus made 
is neither the whitest nor the finest it is never- 
theless the most healthful, because it contains 
a larger portion of the phosphates of the grain, 
or that part of it which goes to make up the 
material for supplying the growth or the waste 
of the brain and the bone. An intricate ar- 
rangement of elevators and conveyers takes the 
various grades of flour separately into the 
packers seen in fig. 4. The elevators are square 
wooden pipes, through which a leather strap 
Fig. 4. — FACKINU BOOM. 
that this should be done within the mill. A 
large quantity of flour is inspected upon the 
wharves or in the warehouses. But the inspec- 
tion brand is a satisfactory certificate as to 
quality, and purchasers may safely depend upon 
it as a guarantee. A large portion of flour en- 
ters into use in the arts or manufactures. Sour 
or unmerchantable flour is largely used as size 
or dressings for cotton warps or for bleached 
muslins. In the first case it is used to stiffen 
the threads to facilitate the process of weaving, 
and in the second case to fill up the interstices 
between the threads and to give it a bod} r , so 
as to make thin, light goods, more attractive to 
purchasers. Bran is also used largely in the 
processes of dyeing and calico printing. 
