Grain storage

“ This section does not affect the application of any other section of this title to property other than grain and proceeds of grain. (b) In this section— (1) “grain” means wheat, corn, flaxseed, grain sorghum, barley, oats, rye, soybeans, other dry edible beans, or rice; (2) “grain storage facility” means a site or physical structure regularly used to store grain for producers, or to store grain acquired from producers for resale; and (3) “producer” means an entity which engages in the growing of grain. ”

“ All the storage places inside the city were rapidly filling with grain, which poured in at every gate on tens of thousands of mules. The plenteous crop, already ripening, would have to be housed somewhere, and even if I did not succeed in buying a large store of grain for myself, I knew how to make a storehouse eat up a large portion of the value of the grain it housed. I had seen wheat, stored year after year, finally become the property of the elevator owner, by virtue of his charges. ”

“ There are 18 grain elevators, with an aggregate storage capacity of 14,650,000 bushels. These are vast store-houses where the grain is elevated from cars and ships, and disposed according to grades, then reloaded on cars and ships, all the work being done by machinery. The shipments of bread stuffs for 1835 were 2,262,030 barrels flour, 23,183,683 bushels wheat, 26,409,420 bushels corn, 10,230,208 bushels of oats, 1,834,117 bushels of barley, and 310,609 bushels of rye. ”

“ The most important foodstuff to be stored and transported is grain. Under the present Chinese method,203 the storage of grain is most wasteful for if kept in large quantities it is often destroyed by insects or damaged by weather. It is only in small quantities and by great and constant care that grains can be preserved for a certain period of time. And the transportation of grains is also most expensive for the work is mostly done on man's shoulders. ”

“ To preserve grain in good condition it must be kept as much as possible from moisture and heat. New grain when brought into a warehouse has a tendency to sweat, and in this condition will easily heat. If the heating is allowed to continue the quality of the grain suffers. An effectual remedy is to turn out the grain in layers, not too thick, on a floor, and to keep turning it over so as to aerate it thoroughly. Grain can thus be conditioned for storage in silos. There is reason to think that grain in a sound and dry condition can be better stored in bins or dry pits than in the open air ”

“ The use of the word as indicating a house for the storage of grain is, however, clearly indicated in the Jydske Lov of 1241, wherein we read: 'But if one build upon the land of another either a "hialm" or any other house,' &c. ['æn byggær man annænds iord antugh mæth hialm æth nokær andre hus,' &c. Danmarks gamle Provindslove, ed. Thorsen, Copenh. 1853, pp. 79–80] . As there is no suggestion in the saga of the finding of cultivated fields, it is not apparent for what uses a house for the storage of grain could have been intended. ”

“ If during the last years, when wheat had reached an especially low price, certain venders began to lay in a store of grain, waiting for a price, then this storage was so difficult that, as soon as the prices advanced at the beginning of the spring of this year, and reached fifty and sixty kopeks a pud, then all the grain was sold and cleaned out, and nothing remained of the provisions of previous years. In 1840 not only had the proprietors and tradesmen plenty of provisions, but everywhere among the muzhiks were from three to five years' stores of old grain. ”

“ East of the Rocky Mountains, after the grain is harvested much of it is sold to dealers whose storage elevators [27] are scattered all over the wheat-growing region, and at all great points of shipment, such as Duluth, Minneapolis, Buffalo, and the eastern seaports. Before the grain is transferred to the elevators it is inspected and graded, and the cars which contain it are sealed. This wheat constitutes the "visible supply." All the business concerning it is transacted by means of "warehouse receipts," that have almost the currency of ready money. ”

“ Canada and the United States alone have recognized the principle that wheat and other grains will run like water, which has been a prime factor in their competition with other nations.
Country elevators charge two cents a bushel for storage during the first 15 days and 1/2 cent for each additional 15 days. The charge for storage at terminal elevators for the first 15 days is 3/4 cent. The farmer may thus store his wheat in an elevator in place of his farm if he chooses so to do, although the wheat he thus puts in storage may have been made into flour and consumed before he sells it. ”

“ In the present time of water-power and steam-power corn-mills, one man is able to grind the flour necessary for the support of several thousand men; in early ages the labor of one person in the grinding of wheat served but to supply the wants of twenty others. In both cases machinery was employed for reducing the grain to flour ”

“ The American farmer can store his wheat or maize at a moderate rate, and can get an advance on his warrant if he is in need of money. A holder of wheat in Chicago can withdraw a similar grade of wheat from a New York elevator.
Modern granaries are all built on much the same plan. The mechanical equipment for receiving and discharging grain is very similar in all modern warehouses. A granary is usually erected on a quay at which large vessels can lie and discharge. On the land side railway sidings connect the warehouse with the chief lines in its district ”

“ If the supply of any one of these plant food elements is limited, the crop yield will also be limited. The grain and grass crops, such as corn, oats, wheat, and timothy, also the root crops and potatoes, secure two elements from the air, one from water, and seven from the soil.
"The supply of some elements is constantly renewed by natural processes, and iron, one of the ten, is contained in all normal soils in absolutely inexhaustible amount; while other elements become deficient and the supply must be renewed by man, or crop yields decrease and farming becomes unprofitable. ”

“ In the autumn, after the wheat has been harvested, the straw is burned and the land is ploughed. In the following April when the soil is dry enough to harrow, the seeds, after being carefully selected and thoroughly cleaned, are planted. For the harvesting a great deal of new machinery is purchased every year. One of these huge machines can cut and stack in one day the grain from a hundred acres of land. ”

“ When harvest comes, the ripe corn is cut down by the reaping-machines, following one another in the same way as the ploughs. In many cases the wheat is threshed at the same time that it is cut, and the grain put, not into sacks, but loose straight into the waggons, which are built up like huge bins. The wheat is then hauled to the nearest town where there is an elevator or granary. ”

“ First, we will steadily develop grain production. We will effectively keep the area planted in grain crops stable, focus on increasing the yield per unit area and optimizing the variety mix, and increase the country's grain production capacity by 50 million tons. ”

“ One acre of soiling crops produced sufficient fodder for an equivalent of 3 cows for six months. Rye, corn, crimson clover, alfalfa, oats and peas, and millets have been found to furnish food more economically than any other green crops in that locality. A grain rotation was always fed in addition to the soiling crops. ”

“ It is known absolutely but not generally that live stock destroy about two-thirds of the organic matter contained in the food they consume. With grains the proportion is higher, and with coarse forage it is lower, but as an average about two-thirds of the dry matter in tender young grass or clover or in a mixed, well-balanced ration of grain and hay is digested and thus practically destroyed so far as the production of organic matter is concerned. ”

“ Occasionally a steamer loaded with coal arrives, but there is no regular traffic, and we saw a big four-masted bark discharging a cargo of wheat that was brought all the way around Cape Horn from California and will be ground up in the mills of Limerick, because it is cheaper to bring it that distance than to raise wheat on the farms in that vicinity. It seems incredible, because there is so much land given up to pastures that might be plowed and sowed with grain. ”

“ From time immemorial wheat has been reduced to flour by grinding it between heavy disks of stone set upon a shaft, the upper one of which revolved, while the nether one remained stationary. The grain, being introduced through an opening in the center of the upper stone, was ground between the burred surfaces of the stones, and gradually found its way outward, until it was discharged from the periphery or skirt of the stones in the form of flour. ”

“ It is absolutely certain, if wheat will not grow with care and industry, and all the usual appliances of good husbandry, where it once nourished successfully, there is one or more ingredients wanted, in such a condition, that the plants can appropriate them to their own nourishment. And first of the inorganic matters.
The proportion of straw will vary from 2 to 31⁄2 times the weight of the grain. Suppose the quantity taken off the land be estimated at 21⁄2 times the weight of the grain. ”

“ Perhaps the first impression which a visitor to a modern roller mill would receive is the great extent to which mechanical contrivances have replaced hand labour. Once the wheat has been delivered at the mill it is not moved again by hand until it goes away as flour and offals. It is carried along by rapidly moving belts, elevated by endless chains carrying buckets, allowed to fall again by 80 gravity, or perhaps in other cases transported by air currents. Another very striking development is the great care expended in cleaning the grain before it is ground. ”

“ Thousands of Italians come over for the harvests and then return to their native land. The harvesting machines are usually propelled from the rear, either by steam power or animals. Attached to the side of the “strippers,” which simply cut off the heads of the grain, is a large harvest cart into which the grain drops. Four roads will be cut from a central point at right angles to each other, which run to the outer edge of the wheat field. In the central point the oblong stacks are formed. By this system the fields of golden grain rapidly disappear before the onslaughts of the cutting machines. ”

“ Not one must be lost and every inch of ground must be put to use. The grain along the margin, for a breadth of sixteen inches, had been gathered into handfuls and skillfully tied, each with an unpulled barley stem, without breaking the straw, thus permitting even the grains in that head to fill and be gathered with the rest, while the tying set all straws well aslant, out of the way, and permitted the last inch of naked ground to be fitted without injuring the grain. ”

“ But if the grain is removed, and nothing resupplies the drain of phosphates which it makes from the soil, the soil will in due time, according to the original quantities in the soil, cease to yield grain, although the straw may be admirable. But if both straw and kernel were every year burned upon the [Pg 150] field, as grass and its seed is upon the prairies, wheat would grow for a thousand years in succession. The same is true of corn, of potatoes, and of any annual crop. When the annual growth is restored to the soil, it is repossessed of all its treasure which had been loaned for a season. ”

“ If, however, expense is no object, they are certainly preferable to the native mill, as they are cleaner, bits of grit not coming off the stone, and each individual grain being crushed, which even the best native mills will not do. Crushed grain is much quicker digested than whole, particularly by old horses whose teeth are not in good order, and [Pg 5] who cannot masticate their food properly. ”

“ We need, instead of mammoth flour mills, a multitude of smaller mills distributed through all the sections where grain is grown. Wherever it is possible, the section that produces the raw material ought to produce also the finished product. Grain should be ground to flour where it is grown. A hog-growing country should not export hogs, but pork, hams, and bacon. The cotton mills ought to be near the cotton fields. ”

“ One man driving the header, one each to the three wagons, two feeding and tending the thrasher, one fitting and tying up the wheat-bags as the cleaned and finished grain comes pouring from the machine, and one hand at the straw-rake, are all busily at work. Very speedily the field is cleared, and the just now waving grain lies piled in a stack of wheat-bags in the center, waiting the departure of the "thrashing crowd," to be hauled by the farmer to the warehouse. ”

“ If his land is not contributing its fair share of grain, vegetables, etc., to the markets, but has all its products converted into meat or milk, the supply of available plant-food may remain sufficient for so long a time that the matter cannot have any interest for him. If the land is producing some crops for market, there is reduction in its mineral store. It is the rule that the boundary of profitable use of commercial fertilizers pushes westward from the older and naturally poorer seaboard states about one generation after need shows in the crop yields. ”