The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 20, 1918, Page 3

s e S s DA B % = ¥ Y i g b R _ lately. - the problems .-to send for the bulletin ~of ' the North Dakota In the interest of a square deal for the farmers Nonparti®sn Toader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League VOL. 6, NO. 20 A magazine that dares to print the truth ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, MAY 20, 1918 Millers Can Sell Tons of Flour as Feed <WHOLE NUMBER 139 Lower Grades of Wheat Furnish Too Much Flour for a Barrel Under New Federal Rules—A Chance for Profiteering or Waste N THE campus of the North Da- kota Agncultural college at Fargo is a little flour mill. This mill is famous all over the country The Leader has had considerable to say about it. It only cost a few dollars to build but it is worth untold millions of dollars to the farmers of America. It is an experimental mill, built to test the milling value of wheat. The grain and mill combine of the United States would feel much safer if this mill never had been built. The little mill on the campus, operating under ordinary commercial mill conditions, has been busy It has made some more astonishing dis- coveries. If you have been a reader of the Leader for long you know what the little mill on the cam- pus discovered about the 1916 wheat crop—the famous “feed” wheat crop, out of which the grain combine wrung many millions of dollars that ought to have gone to the farmers or to the consumers, or partly to both. This little mill, whose work has been given to the farmers of America by Dr. E. F. Ladd through his famous bulletins, also has fur- nished the chief proof that the present grain grad- ing system is wrong and unfair to farmers. Well, you are getting anxious to know what the little mxll on the campus has been up to this time! The little mill has been investigating the result of the application to the wheat crop of the govern- ment flour mill regulations put. in by Food Ad- ministrator Hoover since the war. And it has dis- covered three important things: The government rules give the mills either a chance for unjustified profiteering on the farmers’ crop, or else permit them to WASTE FLOUR to prevent their books showing unfair war profits! The present Zovernment rules, however, are a great improvement on past conditions, and had these rules. existed in the past the produc- ers and consumers would have saved untold millions of dollars that went into the maw of the grain and mill trust! Additional evi- dence has been dis- covered, as a result of the application of the food department rules, of the injustice of past systems of grain grading, and a new basis on which to build fairer grades has been worked out! Quite a little explana- tion and quotation from ‘the official report of the little mill on the campus is necessary to explain - these discoveries. First of all, if you are a wheat farmer or interested in ‘of the wheat farmer, you ought Agricultural college re- porting these discover- jes. . You can get that ‘bulletin by writing to Dr. E. F. Ladd, presi- dent of the agricultural college, Fargo, N.D. Ask for “Special Bulletin, Food Department, Vol. 5, No. 3, April, 1918.” LOOPHOLE IN LOW GRADE ESTIMATES The latest discoveries of the little mill on the campus are given to the world, in this bulletin, by Thomas Sanderson, miller, in charge of the experimental mill; to this bulletin there is an in- troduction by Doctor Ladd. Doctor Ladd is food commissioner of North Dakota as well as president of the agricultural college, and also is government food administrator for North Dakota during the war, by appointment of Herbert Hoover. Doctor Ladd is busy enforcing the federal food regulations in North Dakota, but most anybody could do that. His REAL service to Mr. Hoover and to the people of America is the experimental work he is carry- ing out with Mr. Sanderson, which will enable the food administration, IF IT HEEDS, to give pro- ducers and consumers a fairer deal while the food control lasts. Now, as to' the first discovery reported -by the bulletin—that under the present federal regula- tions opportunity is left for mills to make inordi- nate profits, or else to WASTE FLOUR to prevent their books showing such profits—it is this way: Mr. Hoover requires mills: to make a barrel of flour from 264 pounds of cleaned wheat, having a test weight of 58 pounds or better per bushel, or from 298 pounds of wheat having a test weight of 51 pounds per bushel. The government also has regulations as to the amount of wheat per- mitted to go in a barrel of flour for test weights between 51 and 58 pounds per bushel. Doctor Ladd and Mr. Sanderson have discovered . that the government flour mill regulations desig- nate TOO MUCH WHEAT PER BARREL OF FLOUR IN THE CASE OF THE LOWER GRADES. The .government regulations were based on the professed experience of miilers that the lower grades are of materially less: value for milling than the higher grades, a theory that Doctor Ladd has hitherto exploded. As a matter Whai the people of this great land need is control of- sucil large flour fi:ills as this. ~~Nortl| Dakota has built' an experimental mill ‘that could be lost here a hundred times. That little model ~has cheeked up time and again on the great millers and demonstrated that the laws allow them an unfalr advantage. : PAGE 'TBREE : 5 of fact the little mill on the campus has shown conclusively that the lower grades are almost of equal milling value with the higher. Hence the government regulations permit mills to do one of two things: To make more profits than they are supposed under the government regula- tions, on the lower grades of wheat, or to allow some of the flour from low grade wheat to go into the mill feed, thus wasting large amounts of flour at a time when we are desperately in need of flour. EITHER EXCESS PROFITS OR WASTE These conclusions are based on carefully gath- ered statistics and the process of reasoning it out is too intricate to repeat here, but the following is the bulletin’s summary of the conclusions: “The values given in Table II show that it would be possible for the miller to pay these prices for the several grades and have his manufacturing expense and allowable profit, providing, however, that he succeeded in making the per cent of flour of a standard quality here shown. If this is true, then the licensed miller paying the price as set on the market must either waste some flour or let it go into the feed and sell it at feed prices or have an excess profit. The millers, however, are anxious . to maintain the quality of their flour, which is a factor in helping them to hold the trade they were serving before they were forced under this ruling. Judging from the baking results shown in the average of Table I, the commercial mill (of 300 barrels per day capacity and up) has nothing to fear in this respect. These results show this flour to have quality well within the limits of a ‘standard " straight’; notwithstanding the fact that this aver- age contains an amount of rejected grade wheat equal to that of No. 1 Northern. If the milling industry would take hold in this matter ‘and do the best they can, this ruling could be changed and considerable flour saved as a result. “The above figures might not mean very much to one not familiar with the milling mdustry and what a small factor a bushel of wheat is to the aggregate produced. For example, one bushel from each of the six grades bought at market price if the wheat was milled as in Table II the mill products from the six bushels would be worth 7.42 cents more than the wheat cost, and the cost of manufacture and al- Iowable profit taken care of, or 1.236 cents per bushel excess profit. If one bushel of wheat of each grade were used and milled according to the government ruling shown in Table III, the mill products from the six bushels would be worth 20.1975 cents less than if milled so as to secure all the flour as in Table II, or 3.836625 cents per bushel loss. * “This would result in about one-half pound of flour per bushel being sold as feed; or about 2.25 pounds of flour per barrel produced. . Therefore, a 500- barrel per day mill The state of