THE HANDLING OF GRAIN

Too Long; Didn't Read

On or near the quays of our large seaports, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Hull, Leith, Dublin, may be seen huge buildings of severe and ugly outline, utterly devoid of any attempt at decoration. Yet we should view them with respect, for they are to the inhabitants of the British Isles what the inland granaries of Egypt were to the dwellers by the Nile in the time of Joseph. Could we strip off the roofs and walls of these structures, we should see vast bins full of wheat, or spacious floors deeply strewn with the material for countless loaves. The grain warehouses of Britain—the Americans would term them "elevators"—have a total capacity of 10,000,000 quarters. Multiply those figures by eight, and you have the number of bushels, each of which will yield the flour for about forty 2-lb. loaves. In these granaries is stored the grain which comes from abroad. With the opening up of new lands in North and South America, and the exploitation of the great wheat-growing steppes of Russia, English agriculture has declined, and we are content to import five-sixths of our breadstuffs, and an even larger proportion of grain foods for domestic animals. It arrives from the United States, India, Russia, Argentina, Canada, and Australia in vessels often built specially for grain transport; and as it cannot be immediately distributed, must be stored in bulk in properly designed buildings.