The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, March 17, 1931, Page 2

ees ccisy re <S@dae 22 0 4 —woa BES O88 dee FAAS eee ec cres pee eer ey Ul (2 OEE MQENWBOES RES | Pe DISTRIBUTION COST IS GREATER THAN THAT OF FLOUR IN LOAR Half of Nation’s Annual Flour Production Is Consumed By Baking Firms MILLER BUSINESS IS LARGE Selling and Distribution End of Bread Industry Neces- sarily Enormous By FREDERIC J. HASKIN Washington, D. C., March 17.—(a)— It is one of the major anomalies of ‘modern civilization that flour, the ; made or these transactions but com- THE BISMARCK TRIBUNE, TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 1931 Discrepancy Between Prices Paid for Wheat and Bread Is Anomaly cereal mills engaged in the manufac- ture of breakfast fods. Proportions Tremendous ‘The selling and distribution end of such a business necessarily is of tre- mendous proportions, This one com- pany maintains no less than 69 branch offices and warehouses located in various shipping centers. From these the flour is distributed to the bakers. The baking industry itself has be- come increasingly larger. A number of chain bakeries have arisen with ovens and stores in many cities. This makes it possible for the large millers to deal in huge units. A great flour millin; company on the one hand will sell to a chain bakery an entire trainload of flour. In the past, prof- its of as mucl: as $2 a barre: were petition has become so keen that now only a few cents profit is realized on each barrel. Yet with the tremen- dous voluxe handled, the multipli- cation table comes to the aid of the millers und enables them to make, in th> aggregate, enough vo pay divi- dends. It is, however, a far cry from the time .f the ancient waterwheel grist mill to which the farmer took a few bushels of wheat, had them ground into flour, and gave the mill- er from ¢---quarter to one-third of the product in payment for his work. principal ingredient of bread, repre- sents only a trifling fraction of tne cost of production of the baker's loaf. ‘Without flour, bread could not be made, yet it costs more to deliver a loaf to a consumer than to buy the flour which goes into it. While conditions vary slightly in different sections of the country the items of cost going into the ordinary loaf of bread are flour, 1.7 cents; other ingredients, 0.8 cent; produc- tion costs, 1.05 cents; selling and de- livery costs, 1.75 cents; and overhead 0.6 cent. This totals 5.9 cents for a 16-ounce loaf, the standard size made throughout the country. Although there has been a tremen- dous increase in the consumption of bakers’ bread there still is a good deal of home baking done. Half of the nation’s annual flour production is consumed by the bakers but the other half goes into the homes and is used for home-made bread, for biscuits, cakes. It takes four and one-half bushels of wheat to make a barrel of flour. The American milling industry con- sumes or an average Levoca bushels of wheat a year. This makes 120,000,000 barrels of flour and uses up about 75 per cent of the normal wheat crop, the remainder _ passing into export channels. By the time flour passes into the hands of t' consumer in the form of bread, the cost has been fined down to @ point which represents very little of the whole. Nevertheless, the price of flour to the baker varies directly with the price of Wheat. But even so, the flour cost is so slight that when wheat is down or up insuffi- cient difference is made to be re- flected importantly in the price of bread. The wheat price may fluc- tuate but the production and delivery costs remain quite constant. Wages may vary over long periods but the trend for many years has been up- ward. .f the bakers of the country could obtain labor as cheaply as they obtain flour, bread prices would not turnish ar occasion for remark. In 1927 wheat brought $1.39 a bushel and flour was priced, whole- sale, at $6.70 a barrel. In 1930 wheat went dowr to 85 cents a bushel and flour followed down to $4.50 a barrel. Who Buys the Wheat The big millers of the country are the chief dealers on the Chicago wheat pit. They buy their supplies far in advance. The largest of them produce as much as 45,000 barrels of flour a day. The complicated milling machinery may not be allowed to re- main idle so it is of the first umpor- tance always to have a plentiful sup- ply of wheat on hand to feed into the grinders. So it is that the larger companie;' often. buy wheat before it has carcely sprouted from the ground, Uttentimes, in connection with these large operations, they accumu- Jate too much and then become sell- ers in the market. Large as the transactions of the Federal Farm board have been in making purchases to stabilize the wheat price in the in- terest of the American farmer, those government dealings have not ap- proached the operations of the great millers of ihe country. These large scale dealings presup- pose a widely ramified organization. Some ide. of the extent 0” dvelop- ment ‘3 given by the tale of a single company’s holdings. This company, the largest in the United States and, indeed, in the world, owns 255 ele- vators, strategically located in the wheat country. These elevators have ‘@ total storage capacity of 11,759,000 bushels. Buyers for the company make arrangements for deliveries from ‘":e farm as the crop comes in. First the southern elevators fill up and late>, es the season progresses, those to the northward. In addition to these country eleva- tors, this company owns 27 huge terminal elevators with a capacity of 36,000,009 bushels. In these the wheat is concentrated oefore final shipment to the mills. There are 21 of these flour mills, the combination, all under a single ownership, having @ capacity of 85,850 barrels of flour & day. “t probably is beyond the imag- ination of the individual to conceive of the number of loaves of bread, of hot cross buns, which so vast a quantity of flour could produce. In the milling process there are produced certain by-products in ad- dition to the white flour. This com- peny. for example, has 10 feed mills where ratent feeds for animals are produced. Then, too, it has two Flour milling is almost the oldest of all menufacturing industries. At} the ve:y dawn of time, men ground; cereals with hand stone. The In- dians still do. Then came the stone grind <zheels, turned usually by a waterwhe '. Curiously enough it was not until about 50 years ago that this old method was improved upon. Then | ‘was introduced the steel roller mill. Half a century ago there were bout 2C,000 grist mills throughout the count.y, most of them located in rural distric’~ close to the source of wheat supply. Today there are only about 1000 mills and they, for the most part, are located in great indus- trial centers. The picturesque qual- ities of t' > old* mill, beloved of land- scape Pp: nave been sacrificed but the i-ou~ is turned out at i. pace many times tha. of the earlier times. Dinner Meeting Of Businessmen Dispensed With (Continued from page 1) The selection of these particular lines of activity are based upon the ‘suggestions made in the annual mem- bers conferences, Projects ‘The program of work laid down for the year which this report covers in- cluded fer its major projects: Increased publicity for Bismarck; improvement of the highway system covering Bismarck’s trade territory; the building of a new court house for Burleigh county; revision and im- provement of Bismarck’s auto traffic and parking rules and trade and in- dustrial survey of Bismarck and its trade territory. Minor Projects Minor projects included: an enlarged ‘amusement program; the revival and re-organization of the. coordinating committee; to secure at as early a date as possible an institution of high- er education for the city; city im- provement and beautification; to make sure the 1930 U. S. census be accurate and complete for Bismarck. Under the direction of regular and special committees these projects were given the special attention of the organization. Work Accomplished Publicity received the attention of @ committee of which Director B. O. ‘Ward was chairman. An attractive six page pamphiet setting forth the advantages of Bis- marck as a commercial center and an attractive place in which to establish residence was issued. Material was gathered for compli- mentary full page write up in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The radio was used in announcing conventions, entertainments, basepall games, the Bryan Race Meet, the Corn Show, and other activities. Newspapers were used in giving publicity to all special activities car- ried on in the city. Under the direction of Fred Peter- son, the highway’s committee made a survey of high way conditions in Bis- marck's trade territory. During the year, No. 41, scading from Wilton to Mercer, was partly built and the remainder su: veyed. ;No. 14, from Sterling north to Wing, has been about half graded and the \remainder contracted for. Through the efforts of the com- mittee a highway has been designated down the east side of the Missouri river to Glencoe, and Livona. The committee has cooperated with the Great Plains Highway association ,in its effort to establish a highway from the Canadian Border to Mexico. The project follows No. 83 and has been designated as a federal highway from the South Dakota border at Hull to the Canadian border passing through Linton, Sterling, Bismarck, and Minot. The committee has given special attention to highways west cf the river, cooperating with committees from the Southwestern part of the state and from points along the Eill+ deer line. Court House Near Completion The board of directors set Up a spe- cial committee which raised funds for publicity purposes and organized a campaign for the issuing of bonds for the construction of the new Burleigh county court house, which is now nearing completion. Through the special attention of the city commission, auto traffic and parking conditions were neers during the year. The special committee Ps up to consider the advisability of a trade and industrial survey concluded that it would be wise to defer any action along this line until the complete report of the 1930 census should be issued. The committee headed by Director Theo. Quanrud having in charge the amusement program, gave special at- tention to baseball. While the ac- tivities along this line did not pro- duce altogether satisfactory results, the city was furnished some high grade baseball at nominal expense. The efforts to organize a junior base- ball leagu:: did not prove successful, but it is the hope of the committee that through some agency this line of activity may be continued another year, The committee cooperated with the Legion and Auxiliary committees in handling the entertainment features of the stnte convention. Free acts, & carnival and other attractions were furnished’ and were made very largely self su. taining. Reindeer Brought Here The committee early in the season contracted for the Diamonc Reindeer Ranch Christmas Celebration outfit, which appeared in the city December 15th and 16th. The committee arranged for and had charge of the entertainment fea- tures in connection with:-the State Corn sho. . Practically nothing was done in coordination work during the year. It is hoped that the committee will be continued and that a carefully planne1 public improvement pro- gram will be worked out and adopted. The special committee headed by ©. L. Young investigated several edu- cational institutions seeking locations but none of them seemed to meet the requiremcnts of this field. Plans were made for the drafting and introduc- tion in the legislature of a special bill permitiin’ th establishment of a junior college. Through a special appropriation the Association cooperated with the Flower and Garden club in its flower shows and lawn and garden contests. It also gave attention to the con- dition of the boulevards of the city and cooperated with the Park Board ir carrying out its program. Worked On took a preliminary census of the city and, in cooperation with the Census Bureau, the city was given a com- Plete count. The above lines of work while es- Peclally designated covered but a small part of the activities of the organization. Other activities were: Aviation and Tourist Camp, Con- ventions, Traffic and Rates, Agricul- ture, Finance and Membership. Director H. J. Duemeland was head cf the committee having aviation and the tourist camp in charge. A special committee composed of O. W. Roberts, Frayne Baker, Robert Webb and H. T. Perry cooperated with the city commission in the se- lection and improvement of the Municipal landing field. The committee received and as- sisted in serving the Selfridge squad- 1on which passed through Bismarck in January. It also received and serviced the Class A section of the Spokane National Air Derby which Fassed through the city. Roberts has given special attention to aviators coming to and passing through Bismarck. The committee has carried on cor- respondence and extended investiga- tion with reference to the establish- ment of passenger and Mail Air Serv- ice through the city. Tourist Camp The tourist camp, under the man- agement of G. E. Wingreene, Frank Moule, and J. L. Kelley, reports a suc- cessful season. Two cottages were constructed, one having three rooms, and the other four. These were built and furnished at a cost of $1264.78 ond were paid for out of the receipts of the camp. Total receipts forthe year were $1895 as expenses of $1,840, which included all improvements. Al- though there was & decrease in the number of cars registered at the camp in 1930 from the previous year, there was an increase in the receipts. Norkg registered in 1929 numbered 1639; in 1930, they numbered 1595. in 1929 totaled $1,294.10; receipts in 1930 were $1,876.78. ‘In 1929 receipts from camp fees were $747.90, receipts from cottages and tents $522.50; in 1930 receipts from camp fees were $365, receipts from cottages and tents $1,497.20, These figures show that tourists’ are getting away from the practice of camping and are using cottages in- stead. The camp is now équipped with 10 furnished cottages. All improvements and current accounts for the season were paid and the treasury showed a balance of $55.16. tions Convent Director T. P. Allen, chairman of the conventions’ committee, reports that during the year 44 conventions and conferences were held in the city with an attendance of about 6,80 people. The Farmers’ Union, Amer- ican Legion and. 8. W. Educational association convention had the larg- est attendances. These figures do not include attendance at amusement fea- tures such as baseball and football games, athletic events, Bryan Race Meet, Corn or Poultry Shows, etc. The budget allowance for the entertain- ment of conventions was $750. Of this amount $333.02 was expended. In 1929 we entertained 29 zather- ings with a total attendance of 3,285 at a cost of $437.88. Conventions al- ready secured for 1931, total 15. Agricultural Activities The agricultural committee, of which Director B O. Ward was chair- man, wtih the cooperation of the Today, as in the Beginning northern of varied day the » Your Mightiest Servant HE Northern. Pacific was the first of the transcontinentals. For almost its full length it was built through virgin ter- ritory. It was the mother of that tremendous storehouse wealth which is known as the Northwest. To- Northern Pacific serves this area as mightily as it did in the beginning. The Northern Pacific hauls for all of the Northwest. It employs 50,000 of its own freight cars in this service. Its citizens travel in a fleet of crack passenger trains, head- ed by the North Coast Limit- ed, newest of transconti- nentals and described by travelers as the “most lux- urious train in America.” NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY, First oh the Northern Transcontinentals county agent, purchased and distri- buted in lots of 25 to the children of Burleigh county, 6,500 baby chicks. The total cost of the undertaking was $648.43, and the net returns from the ert eroteh: this open much interest has been aroused throughout the count? in more and ition | better poultry. The undertaking was so successful that the board of iirectors’ feels the project should be continued. Peg ee eee this-com= memt of . Minnesota, farm tour, passing ugh Bismarck, were entertained. The committee has cooperated with the county agent and 4-H clubs in their work. Traffic and Rates Director Paul Wachter, chairman of the traffic and rate department, has kept in close touch with the state railway commission, conferring with its representatives in rate matters in which Bismarck is particularly con- cerned. At the request of this’ association and other organizations, the commis- sion has intervened in the rate case on carlots of deciduous fruits from California. Proposal. to increase rates on car- load lots of scrap iron, aluminum, bronze, and copper was withdrawn because of objections of commercial organizations in this district. ‘The association, on the advice of its committee, offered formal protest to the merging of the Northern Pa- cific and the Great Northern rail- The committee had a representa- tive in attendance at the industrial conference conducted by the Greater North Dakota association at Grand Forks. During this period, when freight rate adjustments are under consider- ,ation, it would probably be an ad- vantage to Bismarck and the sestern portion of the state if the services recommended that serious considera- tion be given by the board to this matter. ance carried forward Nov. 1, 1929, of $28.22 and that the receipts of the as- sociation for the year from all other sources were $9,481.58; that the total expenditures for the year were $9,310.99, leaving a balance in the treasury, with. all bills paid, of $199.41 Considering the times, the mem- ‘bership of the association has oeld up surprisingly well. On November Land 1929, the association had 214 contri- buting members or firms, on Novem- rber 1,-1930, the number: had dropped to 109. On November 1, 1929, the to- tal membership was 373; on Novem~- ber 1, 1930, it was 350, ‘The business affairs of the associ- ation are in a healthy condition and the board of directors entertains the hope that there may be no with- drawals and a reasonable increase in the membership. Miscellaneous The Association has set up a health contest. committee which has made one survey and is preparing for an- other. Upon assignment by the Associ- ation of Commerce, the Lions club or- ganized the Boy Scouts to conduct the annual spring clean up campaign. ‘The Association contributed the prize money and bore the expense. While there is much room for improvement, Bismarck is considered one of the cleanest and most attractive small cities in the northwest. A special committee composed of members of the Association of Com- merce arranged for and put on in the city auditorium an enthusiastic cele- bration of the victories of our high school track, football, and basketball teams. A speaker was brought in from Carleton college, Minn. A spe- of a rate expert were emploved to given attention to our interests It is cial fund of considerable amount, with which the cups for the letter members of all of the teams and the special committee, investigated @ pro- coaches were purchased, was raised. ~-posal by the Farmers’ Union to build As in former years, all participants in the dirtrict track meet were given @ banquet and entertainment. About 165 were in attendance. Under the direction of the Associ- ation, special committees were or- ganized ‘a1 had bier of furnish- ing and making ready the hostess house at the Fort Lincoln ©. M. T. cine overseeing all special fea- ures, providing transportation of the Hein to the swimming pool, securing medals for athletic events, etc. The expense was born by contributions in equal amounts from the service clubs ‘and Association of Commerce. River Improvement A special committee of the asso- ciation, composed of S. W. Corwin, Frayne Baker, and M. H. Atkinson ied Ros up to aire ae to all 2b gate Ib iversion or bee tain of the Missouri river. Baker made a trip to Washington early in the year in an effort to se- cure allotments of funds for rip- tapping and other improvement work on the river in the wicialty of Bis- marck. Outside means were provided for the expense of the trip and while no allotment was secured for the im- Ps thges i through the efforts of jaker, an appropriation of $10,000 was made by congress to defray the ex- pense of a survey of this section of the 5 the activities of the com- mittee, the hearing recently con- ducted in the city by U. 8. engineers from Karsas City was arranged for. There is Fope that a reasonable allot- ment of funds may be made for the development of the upper regions of the river. The Arsociation conducts a well supplied tourist bureau which gives information with reference to road conditions, routes, camp accommoda- tions, etc., to the automobile travel- ing public. During the summer sea- son th bureau is used extensively. @ grain storage elevator in Bismarck. The matter was given serious atten- tion and it was decided by the com- mittee that in view of business and financial conditions action should be deferred for the present. The Association of Commerce is held responsible in a large measure for the success of the State Sip show. It secretary is tie id shave teal tie committee a set in motion by the association and the organization feels its responst- bility for the success of its operations. The As.ociation rooms are used €x- tensively by the county agent in his club activities, by the Girls’ Council, and other organizations. The Association of Commerce is the commercial and civic information bu- Teau of t':e city. A large part of its work is not of such a natu-e that ac- curate reports of its operations are bel -All sorts of inquiries from ST ratte OCtbs World ae to the Le rhteta desk. They are always re- plied vo ccurteously and the best in- formation possible given. All In ee polscas are capping energy, stealing your pep, Saag $e youll, Take 1 SUNSHINE MELLOWS The advice of your physician is: Keep out of doors, in the open air, breathe deeply; take plenty of exercise in the mellow sunshine, and have a periodic check-up on the health of your body. TUNE IN— The. Strike 09, Th and cet sreniae | NB. Heat Purifies LUCKIES are always kind to your throat Everyone knows that sunshine mel- lows=that’s why the “TOASTING” process includes the use of the Ultra Violet Rays. LUCKY STRIKE— made of the finest tobaccos— the Cream of the Crop= THEN —“IT’S TOASTED” — an extra, secret heating process. Harsh Irri- tants present in all raw tobaccos are expelled by “TOASTING.” These irritants are sold to Q others. They are not present in your LUCKY STRIKE. No wonder LUCKIES are always kind to your throat. Your Throat Protection - iin. ol a “It’s toasted”. . against irritation =a against cough 4 | ley wy } Pu pe ay a 5 een a ee ae Oerarbactwynonenn