MAKING FLOUR

Southland Times, Issue 18838, 3 June 1920, Page 6

MAKING FLOUR

THE LOCAL MILLS VISITED. It is .somewhat remarkable that the, things one knows best arc given the least thought, ami this no matter how largo a part they fill in life. The benefits they confer are sneU-hed eagerly enough, but the actual o igin of these benefits occup os no part in the average mind. The citizen is interested in the news container! in h's paper, but the manner of getting that news and the placing of it before the public in a form to be digested with the breakfast bacon and eggs is not considered for a moment. And so it is in the majority of cares with all tilings .-era, all things worn and a 1 things eaten every day—the familiar things, no matter how into eating is the story ol their bring. are known by this form only. For instance, how often does Mr Citizen give a thought to the bread he eats? - Seldom, if ever, unless he was country-bred, docs he think of the waving fields of corn, peihaps in some far country, that is such a source of anxiety to their owner until the season proves good and the crops a sue cess; of the toiling in the harvest fields and the working of the mill under a blazing sun; of the treatment of the wheat until it is converted into flour in works where the whirr of machinery seldom ceases; ami of the bakeries where that flour assumes the shape of loaves innumerable. Ami yet, as is the case of the Invercargill resident he might have at his floors a mill where probably the most intricate and interesting of all the processes is gone through in the manufacture of food for the millions. Perhaps lack of opportunity to in dulge his interest, if it was aroused, might bear no small part in the reason for its sleep, for it is certain that the presence of swarms of visitors to a centre of brisk industry would hardly be welcome. To a Southland Times reporter yestenloy fell the privilege of seeing through Messrs Fleming and Co.’s mill. At present the works are going at full pressure, a large shipment of Victorian wheat which arrived by the Kaiapoi being treated. Perhaps the reporter was typical of Mr Citizen. At anyrate, when he saw the wheat being removed from a railway truck and tipped into a large bin on the bottom floor he had no idea that it was setting out on a trip of between two and three miles before it arrived as flour, bran and pollard bagged in its various grades, to await the demands of the purchaser. From the bin that is its starting point the wheat is lifted in an elevator of a kind that is to be seen on every hand in the works. This is a close-i----in oblong structure. Arrived at the top floor the wheat conies again into the open and is coveyed along a 201’t belting and is then shot over and into bins. ()i course, the idea of the belting treatment is the elimination of dust and its efficiency is evident in the floating particles of this matter with which the clothes become covered. The great bins which become so rapidly fil led are fitted at the bottom with screw attachments so (hat the wheat, which is now very clean, can he removed as required. After travelling through more elevators and along carriers of a type similar to the elevators but lying parallel to the floor, a scraper is brought into employment. This is an arrangement under which the wheat passes slowly, being scraped effectively. After more travel the scraped wheat goes between heated rollers for the purpose of drying, and, next, with a change that seems strange to the lay mind, it goes tiirough cooling rollers. Then it must stand for about 13 hours in specially protected bins in order that it may suffer no ill effects from its previous treatment, or rather, that it nitty recover from any that it has suffered. It is impossible, it seems, to grind two different wheats together successfully, so the wheat must be given an opportunity to harden. From these cooling bins the cereal goes to its first pressure. This is given between rollers that are encased. Another set of rollers that pres? a little hardc; than the previous ones is passed, the wheat now just a trifle crushed, enters a purifict. This, which is enclosed, purifies by means of the precise application of a brush, and, by this time, so little foreign matter is left in the wheat, that (he effect of the process is scarcely visible to the eye. More treatment in various purifiers and crushers. all of which, like the other parts of the machinery, serve their part in a gradual process of classification, and the wheat, bran and pollard each enters its respective chute at the bottom of which the receiving sacks arc attached. Here a man stands to receive the much travelled grain, which is recognisable no longer as the cereal that weighed down the stalks in far Victoria. And during the whole process, which it would take columns to describe in detail, the wheat is never handled. By machinery the whole process is carried out and the absence of workers in large numbers is strikingly noticeable.