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Show HANDLING DAIViP WHEAT Much of the new crop of wheat as delivered de-livered from the farm this year has a high moisture content which, if put into in-to storage without special treatment, ip very likely to cause tronble by becoming becom-ing musty and hot. By mixing high-moisture and low-moisture low-moisture wheat together, a method whereby part of the damp wheat of this year's crop can be put into good condition was demonstrated in an experiment ex-periment at Baltimore which was direct- ! ed by a grain-standardization special j ist of the department in cooperation j with the G mbrill Manufacturing Co., of that city. j The expei iment described was per- formed to determine if it would be pos- : sible or feasible to handle damp wheat j in such a way that it would not be nec-1 essary to put it through a commercial drier and yet insure its keeping safely in storage or during shipment. For this experiment, one car of Pa-! cific coast white wheat containing 1,098 : bushels was mixed with one car of east-em east-em red winter wheat containing 1,126 1 bushels, and put into storage in an elevator bin. On July 29, samples taken from the white wheat while it was still j in the car tested 9.7 per cent moisture. I Samples taken from the red wheat on ! July 31, while this wheat was also still ! in the car, tested 15 1 per cent. These ; wheats were thoroughly mixed on August 3 and the mixture was then put ' into storage in an elevator bin and allowed al-lowed to remain there until August 6, : when it was transferred to another bin. I Samples taken from the wheat at the i time it was transferred tested 12.9 per j cent mjisture for the red wheat and 12.2 per cent for the wnite wheat. The wheat was allowed to remain in the ! second bin until August 10 when it was transferred to a third bin. Samples taken at this time showed that the moisture content of the red wheat was 12.5 per cent and of the white wheat, 12 per cent. While the grin was still in the cars the red wheat tested higher in moisture by 5.4 per cent than the white wheat. By August 6, or three days after the wheats were mixed, enough of the moisture from the damp wheat had been transferred to the dry wheat so that the difference in their moisture content at that time was only seven-tenths of 1 per cent. By August 10, or one week after the wheats had been mixed, the difference in their moisture contents had been reduced to only one-half of 1 per cent. In order to have a record of the temperature temp-erature changes in the grain during this experiment, four electrical thermometers thermomet-ers were placed at different deptha in the bin into which the mixture was run. No appreciable change in temperature was noticed during the transfer of the moisture from the red to the white wheat. The mixing of damp and dry wheat will facilitate the handling of the wet wheat this year. The miller who buys wet wheat and has some dry wheat to mix with it can obviate some of the extra work in handling the damp wheat to keep it is condition and also get it in shape for milling by mixing the two wheats together for a few days. This will also do away with part of he extra work in drying. One car of wheat can be dried down to a low moisture content and then mixed with another car of wheat of high moisture content and time and labor be saved. If the mills or elevators are equipped so that they can mix and dry at the same time, this method will greatly increase their capacity cap-acity for taking care of large quantities of damp wheat. |