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Show COST OF BREAD IN OGDEN AND THE I POSSIBLE INCJASEjN WAR TIMES Local Writer Figures Out What the Farmer, Miller, Baker and BrZl " SUS!tS a ity Bakc op-Loaves of Biead Weigh Less Than a Pound and the Average is Ounces Some Loaves Are Only 10 Ounces People Pay for Much Water. Editor Standard: it i8 nol so limg sincp a president of the United State? srrnt rruch valuable time trying io jefrrinin1 officially just what constituted consti-tuted good whiskey Surel It will not be out of place in these stirring uar tunes to consider briefly just L -when fnd what is n loaf of bread. jso, how much. For, by common conspnt a loaf of bread is regarded as being more useful use-ful and beneficial than a drink of whiskey costing twice as much and yet no president has up to date refer-; refer-; red even remotely to the price or composition of bread in any of his annua! messages, nor has the governor gov-ernor of Utah, so far as I am advised, warned the legislature to be careful of eiir.ctlng aay hasty or radical laws on the subject, so I venture to tackle I it Tn begin with, "bread is the start of life." That is easy and I am glad to say it and be done with it Consulting Webster you wjll find bread defined as "a mass of dough, made by moistening and kneading, and usually fermenting the flour or meal of some species of grain and baked in an oven or pan." But anyone can confirm this bit of information by consulting a volume vol-ume of Mr Webster's work at the city library. built from funds derived by a Scotch gentleman by slipping Interest coupons from bonds secured by first mortgage on the sleel plant which furnished the American navy with armor piate containing con-taining a reasonable number of blowholes blow-holes (.nnsnltlnc: the encyclopedia (third ghelf to the left just inside the north door you will learn that "previous to being employed In the fabrication of bread (get that?) the grain of what undfrpoes the process of grind-Ins grind-Ins with the double object of reduc-S reduc-S F, inp It to a fine state of division and separating the more hard and indigestible indi-gestible parts" And funhor along we are advised that "during the grinding operations I v,e wheat, as it passes from grain to flour, nearlv doubles its bulk ' Th: startline fact will be a revelation revela-tion to the old timers who used to ridp astride to m il with a half hush?l of vhef in one end of the sack and a small boulder in the other end of th sack to balance it It was In those days that the story-was story-was told of the boy who stood watching watch-ing the thin stream of flour trickling down from the revolving millstones pnri who finally declared that be could i i the four as fast as it was ground "Tool may be. sonny.' said the "but ho long could you keep it up?" "Till 1 starved to death," said the I bo' . In those days, back in the com belt, the young talks when tired of playing "rfror. thp handkerchief," and "kissing Km.fi' would plav "Miller Boy." They Marched around a circle in cou-1 cou-1 v'ps "singing "O. hanD i.u tin miller boy. Tkflt 11 or in the mill. ! I Tha vhaalf go around With a right good will. 'I Ouc hunt' Id thfi hopper I And the otver in the sack. The If.tiUs step forward V hile the gents fall back." Th,s choice bit oi folk song is quo-i"l quo-i"l :o Illustrate the p.-n-fce:ted cou-ml- victiou that has alw) n QVevtJM 'll ruial comnnmiiies that the miller rover pave bixaaaH the worst of it in inking out the toll." Since the days of big mills and patent processes, the plan of hi i'B each customer wait his turn rrd then watch his own "grist ' turned ir,!: flour, bran and shorts, has been K?nerally dh-rontinnod and now the , isrmer has his grain weighed up I and at once receives either cash or flour as he selects Sonip of the mills, especially those ; located :n power centers, like Minne- I I f-imlip. buy grain by the carload aud do not bother with "griat" custom-i custom-i era. The al30 sell only to whole- sale customers and spend large sums, advertising certain labels. 1 The Utah Agricultural college, in a bulletin issued last year. giveB the ' comparative results of milling many kinds of wheat from which It appears ! that Turkey red Is the best adapted to Utah soil and climatic conditions Experiments at the agricultural sta tions in Minnesota and in Maine deal I largely with three general classes of wheat. Minnesota spring wheet Ore-Ron Ore-Ron soft winter wheat and Oklahoma hard winter wheat The general II average aeems to test out something like this Protein. 12 5 per cent; fat. 2 2 per eent; carbohydrates. 73 per cent; ash. 1 ? per cent and water. 10.4 per cent. Now a test of the white flour made from average samples of wheat show I the following per cents: Water, 10.11; protein, 12 47; fat 0.86; carbohydrates. 76.09 and ash. When this flour is made Into bread the composition is much different owing ow-ing largeh to the addition of water. Prom 198 samples of white broad an I alyzed by the agricultural department I the following average was obtained. Water, 35 3, protein. 8.7; fat 1.3. ri ' carbohydrates, 53.1 and ash 1-1 Pcr cent It is explained that the protein in wheat is closely allied to the lean or meat or the curd of milk, while tho carbohydrates are nearly all starca m. it is said that the proportion of r these elements in the flour is very P important the difference In flour reciting re-citing in a thousand different kinds ! l bread I The nrofessional bakers are prett mccessful however in turning out a Uniform qualitv of brea-d. largely fee t cause now much of the work of mix-' mix-' !ng dough is done by machinery and i kxact processes are followed. The price of bread is the most U-tortant U-tortant feature to most people. This Involves also the weight of a WW' i There is now being sold in the local market loaves of white bread weigh- Jn all the way from 10 to 12 ounces. I During the past year, th" writer : has weighed loaves from a number oi bakeries of both Ogden and Salt Lake and hns never ftfund a loaf weighlnj ll ounces and offered for sale at 5 cents The average weight has been about 12 ounces M may not be generalh known, but it is a fact, that since the outbreak of the European war the price of bread in Ogden has been Increased about one-sixth by the simple expedient of cutting down the size of the loaf about two ounces from the peacetime peace-time weight Not all of the bakeries have resorted to this, but some of them have. As a result of the war. the price of wheat has been somewhat increased and the price of flour greatly Increased, In-creased, In ordinary times, the' farmer farm-er who sells bif wheat the next da after It Is threshed gets around 65 cents a bushel, or a little better than a cent a pound Now the price is double that In a general way. it may be said that 100 pounds of wheat will yield 100 pounds of high patent flour, for the bran, shorts, graham or other byproducts, by-products, are now so closely utilised and iD so many different ways that they are more than equal in value to the same weight of wheat In a year of average wheat crop In times nf peace, flour retails at about 2 per hundred pounds and the grocer pays the miller about $160 to $170. Of course, In war times as at present such prices can not be expected. This would appear to give an excessive ex-cessive profit to the "miller boy" but he furnishes sacks and suffers some losses in screening grain However, so far the price of bread is not very much greater than it was before the war began and before the war the farmer got a little better than one cent a pound for his wheat and the consumer paid about eight cents a pound for his bread The miller, the baker and the' grocer divide di-vide the difference between them Since the average loaf of white bread contains 35 per cent of water, it would anpear that 100 pounds of flour would make 152 loa es of bread weighing one pound. but if the weight is cut down to 12 ounces the number of loaves would be about 200 and, if further reduced to 10 ounces -and there are. 10-ounce loaves sell ing in Ogden the number baked from 100 pounds of flour would be 246. If a farmer In peace times sells his wheat at $1 20 per hundred pounds he mut make some profit but he ts neutrally a poor bookkeeper and It is hard to say what his profit is But the miller keeps books and if he can produce 100 pounds of flour, or its equivalent In value, from the. farmers 100 pounds of wheat. he knows to a cent what he is making If he sells to the baker at $1 70, he makes about 50 cents on the 100 pounds. Supposing that the baker pays ?1 7 per hundred and converts the flour into SMM) loaves of 12 ounces each, and sells the same to the grocer at three and one-half cents apiece, he receives $7 far the same, or a profit of $;" 30 But if he cuts the weight to 10 ounces, oun-ces, be sells 246 loaves for $8.61 or a profit of 56 91 Of course, if he pays $2 more a hundred for his flour in war times, his profit on 10-ouuce loaves is reduced re-duced to $4 91. To be sure, he has expenses to meet rent interest, taxes, tax-es, insurance, wages, coal and cost jf delivery, but the fanner, the miller, and the grocer have practically the same kind of expenses to meet. The grocer, it will be noted, makes one and one-half cents on each loaf sold, big or little, and on 12 ounce loaves his share of profits on the 100 pounds of flour is $6. Ho makes twice as much as the farmer does, and six times as much as the miller, but he has to make an awful lot of sales and has to furnish the paper and string with which to tie up the bread. Hence, as a college professor would sav, hence and wherefore if a l'-ounce l'-ounce loaf costs 5 cents, what will a 16-ounce load cost? Answer- Eight cents And if a 16-ounce loaf is worth 8 cents and contains 35 per cent wa ter worth 5 cents a barrel, and a pinch of salt, costing $4.50 a ton, what Is the flour in such a loaf selling for9 Answer: Thirteen cents a pound. (This is the same flour that the farmer sella to the miller in the shape of wheat for a little over 1 cent a pound.) And again, if bread was selling in Ogden' at 5 cents for a 12-ounce loaf at the beginning of the European war. and a 5-cent loaf now weighs only 10 ounces, and some of them do, then what is the war costing us per loaf? Answer; One cent per loaf, or an increase of 20 per cent Then If Ogden has a population of 30 000 and each person should eat half a loaf at an added expense of one-half cent how much is the war adding to the city's bill for bread' nswer $150 per day. or $4,500 per month, or $54,000 a year If everyone ate baker's bread nd speaking of war, what would our government probably do if it became be-came involved in the European war' Well first it would probably stoD 1 shipments of wheat flour and other foodstuffs to foreign countries and next it would "commandeer or Krab all the flour in stock and notify no-tify all holders of wheat, including the farmers, that the government calmed the first right to buy their erain, probably at its own price 8 "rnaclne Ogden in a stste of siege, the enemv intrenched on the ndge east of the Hot Springs, aeroplanes dropping bombs along Washington av-tnne av-tnne bv day and dirigible balloons cruising around at night! Would anybody any-body be allowed to buy flour at 4 cSts a pound and sell it at 13 cent' C Vnswer Hardly The elty wouht without doubt, follow the example o " general government and buy all f a m irht Everyone would Tpactd'oa f"lous The govern- S&'SffSwiM moon muS ETrr'say the least, the weight and price of a loaf of bread would be fixed by law, at least as long as the siope lasted this city and every other city in the United States is besieged. The l wolves of hunger are always at the I gate If you do not think so, go I over to the city jail toniaht and see more than 100 men, homeless and hungry, sleeping on benches and on the floor They are the refugees from the I ! Belgium of capitalism If they can live tbrouph until next spring, they, and thousands more like them, may find jobs and can then oat regularly. But there Is no enemy entrenched at the Hot Sprinss, no aeroplanes overhead; no shells bursting in the streets, so a man is not worth very much this winter, and capitalism leaves the feeding of theB men to private enterprise One of the churches has seen the need and has done what it could by feeding 125 hungry men. The W. C. T. U. will follow suit Other organizations organi-zations will no doubt do the same and by giving these men one good meal a week it is possible that they will pull through till spring when capitalism may or may not see a way of employing them They do those things better in Ger many That is one reason why that country has been able to stand off the combined armies of nearly all Europe. In Germany, when a man is out of employment, the government hunts up a job for him and, if it is at a distance from home, gives him a pass over the railroad which is owned by the government. The German government had at the beginning of the war a supply of grain stored up estimated to be enough to furnish bread for the soldiers sol-diers of the army and feel for its horses hor-ses for two years In every garrison town the German government buys and stores grain. It Is piled up loose under long shels to a depth of about five feet Twice a month it is shoveled over to keep it In good condition. It Is kept on hand four years before being made Into flour in the government mills. The sheds containing this army grain are arranged side by side 'n 6ets of five. Each year the wheat in one of the sheds Is made Into flour and the shed is filled again with new-wheat new-wheat The Germans will not be starved out. What has been done in foreign countries could be done here in a modified form. Ogden City could build Its own mill, operate its own bakeshop and if it would do this at actual cost could probably deliver to Its citizens a 16 ounce loaf for three cents For 152 loaves at 3 cents would bring $4.58 which would leave the citv a good working margin over even the war price of flour As a city, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to furnish the citizens with good water to drink For much less money we could build the mill and bakeries necessarv to furnishing the people with good bread to eat. As a city, we have planned to furnish fur-nish light for the homes of the citi zens Why nol suppiy the bread for their tables and furnish It at cosf The city does, now, at this time sell the 35 per cent of water in each loaf, why not sell the 65 per cent of flour used? Ogden City, furnishing flour and bread to i tB citizens, would buy wheat by the train load, would grind it and sell the flour at cost or make it into bread and sell it at cost and deliver it at cost at the kitchen doors If the city were doing these thing? at cost, flour would not now be selling sell-ing at $4 per hundred pounds 1n the sack and at $13 per hundred pounds, when baked into 'nes But the ideal condition I have mentioned men-tioned would mean municipal ownership owner-ship and that is an awful thing, even to think about for some people, because be-cause it would take the business of furnishing food out of private hands and no one would ever make any monev out of it again, and that would be too bad. But let us not worry It will not be done right away, unless we havo war So we will probahlv go right on paying the price and other people will set the price. For it is a long, long way to Tip-perary Tip-perary (Signed), O. A. Kennedy. |
