THE AMERICAN FLOUR TRADE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2051, 20 September 1880, Page 3

THE AMERICAN FLOUR TRADE.

The production of wheat flour, like many other industries, hoe of late years grown enormously throughout America. Advantage has been widely taken of the great and extensively distributed water-power. Numerous mills have been erected and fitted up with the most modern and effective machinery. Besides fully providing for the growing wants of a population of forty-five millions, the exports have been expanded largely. liast year the flour exports of the United States to Great Britain alone reached 9,863,172 owt. ; they are double those of 1878 5 they are four times those of 1877. This is exclusive of the 460,435 cwt. forwarded from North British America, which has nearly doubled her exports since 1877. The wheat for grinding is carefully selected and cheaply handled ; railroads, canals, or rivers bring it in into the mill and take away the flour ; on through bills of lading, it is cheaply forwarded to European ports; special agents distribute it throughout this country; and American millers declare that this important industry can be still further developed, and that flour can bo made in America and forwarded and sold in Great Britain cheaper than it can bo made there. Although the latter proposition is untenable, there is no doubt that the production of flour throughout the world has been improved and cheapened by American invention and skill, while the large surplus supplies both of the State and of Canada notably reduce prices and narrow the profits of British millers. Owing to shortened consignments ,from Hungary and Austria, many American mills in the spring wheat States have for two years been turning out large proportions of the highly albumenoid patent flour. The head-quarters of the manufacture of American patent flour is Minneapolis, the twin capital of the fertile State of Minnesota, where the mighty stream of the Mississippi pours over a precipice 50tt. high. On either side of the river the flood has been deflected into tunnels of stone and concrete, 'and drives turbine wheels which move saw-mills and turn out annually 150 to 200 million feet of sawn timber, distributed hundreds of miles to build settlers’ houses and supply the wants of States less bountifully provided _ with timber. Still more widely distributed is the flour ground by twenty-five mills, varying from three to eight storeys high ; their floors are computed to occupy an area of one and a quarter million feet, and filled with superior modern machinery. This milling enterprise has grown rapidly. In 1873 there were but twelve mills, not worth more than 50,000d015. each mow there arc twenty-five, valued at a low estimate at 75,000d015. Pour have been built during 1878. In 1860, Minneapolis turned out annually 30,000 barrels of flour. Her present producing powers would almost enable her to do this in two days. With a little extra effort she could nearly manage to furnish the 12,000 sacks (of 2801 b.) which are said to bo consumed daily in London. Her actual daily turn out, when all the mills ore working, is 12,000 barrels. She ground in 1879 upwards of 1,500,000 barrels, and of this large produce nearly onethird (422,598 barrels) was exported. The only other place whore anything approaching to this business is overtaken is St. Louis, where the flour produce of 1870 was upwards of 2,000,000 vrels,—"Times."