The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 7, 1916, Page 7

R 0 v T Y The Story of Dr. Ladd’s Flour Tests; What They Teach About Grain Grades. “UT at the state Agricultural college is a small flour mill operated by ‘one of the most ey by experienced ‘and skillful millers in the northwest, ,grinding out flour, shorts and bran week after week during most of the year, and with the flour, - shorts and bran, grinding out answers to many puzzling questions. ’ 2. It is not such a small mill, either, for A ‘#t has a capacity of 30 barrels of flour a day, and with its three sets of double 'rolls and two applications gives as many “breaks” and “reductions” in arriving at the flour end: of the proeess, as any of the big mills in' the Twin Cities. P *. Year after year it has ground out its e mwheat, and its answers, and year after b 7/ year, the answers: have been carefully, Py very carefully; checked up, catalogued, {0273 reduced to tables, and put into bulletins. - LR -One . of the peculiar things about this - P mill is- that its every act is recorded.- Nothing is done in haphazard fashion. _ It has not ground out one bushel or oné: { pound of wheat during its nine years of D patient toiling. that has not come ) . through the mxfi *with- a story. for the { farmers -of North Dakota. FINDING OUT NEW FACTS "¢ FOR FARMERS' BENEFIT Year by year, step by step, it has L been keeping pace with the big discov- e eries which the big mills in Minneapolis have been making about wheat. Not a new fact. as to the relatively high value of rejected wheat as compared with No. i 1 northern has escaped it. Out on the 3 4 prairies. of North Dakota it has been keeping “tab” on the progress of milling science: Minnegota mills can’t put any-’ thing over on it. It knows all they know. Far from the big_centers 1:.'&11 been keeping watch for the busy fa { and storing up ‘its knowledge. o I The big mills in their extensive labor- grinding just the same ‘kind of ey, wheaf, making just the same kinds of North Dakota, one in which they will of flour, and it knew the prices that . _be immediately interested is to the the big mills were_ paying for raw g wheat, and getting for finished flour. The little mill knew ' that No. 4 “wheat made 67.33 per cent of flour; some imagine to establish grain grades,” said Dr. Ladd. “This can be done simply by modifying the present rules. There need be no revolution in the wheat grades that will be more just to industry. Nothing need be introduced ‘the growers than those nmow in effect, with which the grain trade is not already - - % AR familiar. “There are two points that need consideration, and by adjustment of these the grading problem can be put on an economically sound basxs Data which we have on hand here at the expenment station shows conclusively that the grain ought to be graded according to its mill- ing quality. But milling quality at present does not enter at all into the making of the grades, although it does enter into the selling of the wheat as soon as it has been graded and has pas- sed into. the hands of the millers and the grain buyers. “The present grades are based upon the appearance- of the grain, upon its freedom from seeds and cracked grain which . go into screenings, and upon lts welght per.: bushel PHYSICAL APPEARANCE IS NOT TRUE TEST “But these are not the real tests of the mnchine shown in this pietnre is used.- for separating ‘the sound value of wheat. Just:to illustrate, there poor ‘grain and screemngs, before dehvenng ‘it from the elevator to , was wheat in-1914 that weighed less than the bretkinl mlls. AR < 40, pounds per bushel, which made more i ‘ SAR P A flour than wheat that weighed over 50 and at the Eame time be accepted in the Pounds per bushel. Yet when the millers wheat markets of the world?” FRaog The answer of the mill i8 that these - grades can be established simply by con- sidering the miling quality of the wheat, and by considering the value of the hy- ' products now made from material which -was worthless when the pregent’ grades question: “How can North Dakota establish e ¢ atories-learned one day that it was much : ® more profitable to buy No. 3-and Nos 4 = 5 “§ '+ . wheat than No. 1, and they bought all The Agricultural ‘college elevator and mill building shown in the accompanying ) Fi they could of it at those grades, because cut has been for nine years the scene of constant scientific experiments with wheat 3 o it made better flour and more bran than grown in North Dakota and in many other states where data as to milling quality : T ] "No. 1. and much other valuable information has been gleaned. The United States govern- ment has most of its experiments- along these lines performed here. Connected with But the little old mill on the the mill are three United States experts engaged in gram standardization, and a ‘ MR po . campus knew this too. It was cereal chemlst employed by the state. } | i i { ) ¥ that Nn. 3 mlde 69.41, while Neo. 1 made only 70.112 and that not as . good. The little mill found that _ profits on No. 1 Northern %monnt- ledtosspermt,thtuofitaon “rejected” amounted to 55 per mdonNo.d,SZpereent. AN {MPORTANT QUESTI § fWould the anesota covering - eight years: an samples of wheat. Dr. Ladd ‘explained for the Nonpartisan:Leader last week, how easy l“rw,fll be to ‘establish. Narth' the ‘wheat trade’ | profit in wheat deals . ‘shte-oWned elevator? combine “rob a blind man”? Sure; that’s what they’re doing. The present grading systemisa blindfold: You take alow grade for your wheat - and-sell it at a low price. It’s often worth more for milling purposes than the high grade. Th - shouldn’t we do a little mnnng burselves——at ill Works for the Farfiier . buy wheat of thm kmd they do not accept it at 40 pounds per bushel, but they buy. it by weight and take 60 pounds for every bushel they pay for— in other words take one and one-half bushels for one. Here was 40 pound wheat that was more valuable than 50 pound wheat, but according to present standards had to take a lower grade. j “The appearance of wheat- alone will not tell -its value. Our experiments show that No. 1 hard will not make as many loaves of bread or as good bread because it has not as much gluten,’ _ This wheat now graded as No. 1 has to be mixed with the lower grades in order to be brought up to standard where it meety the requirements of the housewife and the baker, which are the standards by. which . the miller sells his .product, although they do not yet enter into the standard by which he buys it. You can’t base the bread producing value upon the physical properties as they are seens If you do you will never do justice. In order to arrive at proper grades for - grain, we must take the bread produc« ing value and the milling quality. 3 “It is objected that this ¢an not be done with every lot of wheat offered for sale, and that is true. Such' tests could ‘not be applied as the wheat was being received. But ,averages are safe. The average milling quality ascertained by, such experiments carried over a numbex of years would be perfectly safe, and these averages could be revised each season on the basis of the laboratory, tests which the season’s yield showed. This would give a standard that would not vary violently from year to yeat, and yet would keep in touch with condi« \ tions at all times. VALUE OF BY-PRODUCTS IMPORTANT FACTOR IN GRADES ‘“Another element essential to “the fixing of gtades is the value of the bran and screenings. I do not say that the ‘present grades were unjust when they were established. At that time bran was- worth only $8 a ton and screenings were worthless. Today bran is worth $20 to $25 a ton, and screenings nearly, as much. Yet the farmer who sends tq the market a carload of wheat that ig somewhat shrunken will get a low grade upon it because of this, but the wheat, because of the greater amount of outer surface will make more bran than a higher grade, and will have a higher gluten content. 3 “A farmer who sends to market a carload of grain containing much broken and shriveled wheat and seeds that go into screenings pays the freight on these products but instead of being paid for them according to the value the mill derives from, them, he is docked several pounds per bushel. Grain - grades should be revised to take into consider~ ation the difference in the value of these by-products now and when -the grades were established.” NORTH DAKOTA GRADING NOT A DIFFICULT MATTER Dr. Ladd was asked to outline a way in which North Dakota could put into practice .a state-controlled grading %ystem, and he declared it would be a matter of no Mculty whatever. There are plenty of men in North Dakota today, he ‘said, who are amply qualified to grade gmn according to these proposed changes in the system, who would become experts with experience. Such men should be appointed, he beheves, under ‘a system -of competitive examin« ation and merit, and entirely divorced from " the political power of the gow= mlllmg and elevator' is m ‘the mixing. Wh as an -equal quantity of Ne, 3 or No, 4,° P i i