DRYING OF WHEAT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 68, 7 April 1937, Page 15

DRYING OF WHEAT

Use of Machinery Is Being Studied CANTERBURY INTERESTED A great deal of detailed information about the possibility of installing machinery for the artiflcial drying of wheat in Canterbury has been collected •by the Wheat "Committee as a result of inquiries made overaeas for three !or four months. The subject was rejcently raised at a meeting.of the Cansterbury provincial executive of the Kew Zealand Farmers' Union, at whioh the step was suggested. Millers are stated to be showing little enthusiasm. The Wheat Committee has been making inquiries about axtificial driers for several months, and the investigatlons were being directed to bofh mobile and stationary plants. The value of the mobile plant, it was said, was that the wheat could be dried on the farms immediately it had been headed, thus saving the extra expense and handling involved in drying with a stationary plant. Many types of driers are in ^peratioo in England, and Mr G. A. Pascoe,' of the Department of Industries and Commerce, who is at present in England with th« Hon. W. Nash, Minister oi Finance, is personally inspecting these and others on the Continent. Mr E. W. Hullett, chief chemist at the Wheat Research Institute, is also to make personal investigations. He. will leave Kew Zealand next month for America and Europe. It was admitted by millers that eonsecutive seasons had been very wet, bnt if the district's nsual weather was considered it would seem unlikely that drying plant would be wanted agaiu • for very many seasons. It was dofibted .if a mobile plant would b© able to handle the crop at sufficient speed, and the cost of a stationary plant, it was thought, would be enormoua. . . • -ir'