LUGAw LNVUD ity, Tae Cauda Piods mul own at the Point whither one drives these hot days to catd a preatu of cooling Ireeze and to note the daily portion of Jand rescued from the Huangpu by enter-pusing prospecuve Landowners, there ts auwways one other centre of inverest—the live jetty, which serves the big mill of the China flour Mill Company. Year m year out, 1 rarely happens tore are of halt a score or so or JunKs clustering round the pier, keeping busy an endless enam of coves bearing on bamboo poles baskets of grain or sacks of fine tour, accorang &s the journey is to or from the Very picturesyie they look: very as they toil cheeriuily along the raising Unat meladiotts nant Pat with wien Chinese coolie would vertly tive imrden. "Ihe landward end this living win disap a small bridge, warded by lorbiduing notice to the curious imper= tinent. "It is no merely fornytl nonce either, as a brawny Sikh, tuny alive to his responstbilitics "ay sentry, takes care firmly out pontoly to impress on intruders. But there are ways and means Circumventing most barriers, and a cara sent within to Mr. H. W. Dowling brought down that active and courteous gentleman to bid a smiling welcome to three professional sightseers who venture ed to challenge admission the other day Greetings exchanged and traps left with the now obsequious Sikh, 2 few paces across the bridge introduced the party to a spacious godown, where, amid flying dust, Ue elreuummbuaung evvties wets seen weighing off and emptying their baskets, piling the contents conveniently for further treatment. Each basket containing approximately 90 Ibs., every coolie's entrance means another 180 lbs. to the growing heaps on the floor. Hand-tuis picked at random showed the wonderful mixture of grain, good, bad and indifferent: and with the wheat too rape, millet stones, pieces of metal, ans com mon sand, mud, or dust. [03> minutes some of this heterogeneous collection would have been sifted, ed off in bags, aS flour ready to be sent Lack to the jetty and thence shipped to the Mill's customers, all along the coast, or up country. In the meantime it would have accomplished a circuitous journey of about three-quarters of a mile, diver-sifed with more than an average share of ups and downs and passed through a complicated series of processes, none of them, however, performed by hand. It was Our inquisitive purpose to accompany it an closely as possible on thin diselplinary. journey Complex 3 is the machinery in detail, the general process: of milling is sim* plicity itself. Sifting, washing, crush the three st whether they are performed in 2 Chinese farmyard, round the upper rud nather mill-stone—after the fashion in which domestic milling has een done for a thousand ages—or as it is at the Point, by specially contrived mecitanisin, whose object is to do the expedition ant the greatest regard for purity. This latter consideration is exceedingly important, and a visit to the China Flour Mill shows the extraordinary precautions that are taken to ensure that flour Learing the trin's stamp and guarantee shall be above suspicion. In regard to expedition, the bags of 50 ibs. each are-filled at the mill and the fact speaks for itself that more than 1,800 are filled every day, during the leven worsing hours. buch output is the rowly of six years growth since the nil was" first erected, and the laying down this year of new and specially imported plant indicates far lurger " possibilities' in. the future.
Reference hus been made to the mixed characters of the raw produce on its first arrival from the junks. From three to four per cent is refuse and this is extracted by what is known as the warehouse separator, a_ machine devised and set up by Mr. Dowling himself, in the early days of the Mill. It is really sieve, which takes out such undesirable constituents as stone, sand, and cash, for strange to tell, quite a number of the national copper coins find their way in amid the corn There is in fact consider-competition among the coolies to be set to work at this prelimin sry separator for the cash spoils will amount on an a month, a sum nol to be despised when reckoned in copper cash and) computed to colic Economies Working 10 hours this Louse separator will el 1,400 piculs a day.
The original dirty condition ix not together to be words th tis all native grain and Chinese methods dispo harvest are a ts their ways in general are reputed to be. Most of the corn ground at th mill is from the great w 2 t-growing district beyond Soochow. It is reared principally holdings, from which it is coltected in correspondingly small quantitic by desiers who are wt over seruiulous 98 to the manner of filling their junks ssu fong as the grain is in sufficient prepon-Gerance. The corn, it may he mentioned, has been threshed' out previously by a process older even than flailing, that is ay, by simple beating of the ears, using he straw ends as handle, on the mud Yoor of a hut or in the open. When, combined with a certain amount of mud virus tthe furak frequently further dilute ater, which increases its weight vsily, thet at the special preeas e to be tak -o meet this gentle plan of squeezing. and to make sure that the percentage of wast-ge is as' small as possible.
The first sorting out hed, the grain is in condition (0 he introduced te the "worm," for conveyance to the wheatings department proper. Once upon this portion of its journey was plished by coolie labour and baskets: but the worm is less obtrusi and perhaps more steadily. industria' For the benefit of the unani he explained that the cam question is as long contin narrow trough. the gr: it the course which it wri celerity. thai it will carry ne the dredge principle, but of course much smaller. By this means it is delivered short ti '2 what are technically termed di ins: whence it passes into a Separator and several cockle machines, which should eliminate seeds ther than wheat as well as sand and anni. This, however, is anis the beginning scourer and the rotary separator have yet to he passed in tur: and then comes the washer, 5 called, with its double-over the gram ast to drive out all lighter than wheat. There are besides to extract any stones or hard substances which may have escaped so far. Not to weaken the essential properties of the wheat it remains in the for 3 seconds only and then gets a thorough rinsing in a vertical whizzer. The drying is completed by passing the who: through hot air and then through cold air conditioner. Placed then clean bins it is ler sumerently long to recover its natural condition, save for the dirt. During such rest, light particles of dust way settle on the corn, and to het this contingency there comes another dressing down from a vertical crust. 'Then to prevent the possibility of nail or odd metal having found its in or kept its place the cleansing processes, the wh streams under Several rows of power tui magnets, which would promptly detect and' gather them up. The wheat is now ready for—grinding to that end drops ito x scale which assures it off automatically in piculs. k-rollers, which apply. method to ettect th After submitting thet der merous of these, the tortured corn is higher fo ther the me tioned pursues frow this point and itself in the hands of the 1s. NE tle meal itself a po taken ant to he treated as semolina.
Hier portions ame similarly destined to jecntne: kunnen ely as "middlings'" or "soit products." Each of these to be ground afresh over its speci smooth roller, which delivers in turn into ies corresponding dresser. Here a further sub-division into three takes place. The first portion out s already finished flour: the portions have yer a mether grinding and ing umu they too ts Leven ually: at the 1 andi pal ful journey and drop through another automatic weighing straight into thei Th may here he said, are all in & corner of the mill by & couple iv. The stamping of th with the well-known chop of Uke aids is also done int the Just recently anew chop has been reduced; it represents a motor-car te imply Ghat the China Flour Mill, which was the pioneer in China, dos not mean to be left behind now that mors h "into the field. The chinery. selected and arranged for at four-month rus this spring, is further evidence of tention ist male greater Ming during the six short gears it has been carried on in Chin:
one time the American home tls ad the business in China ale their own hands. fond with © owing this ur, proved w.erions competitor tu develop to von sh larger ex-the near f "At first the wes tried of impgsting the but the native-grown produce 1s as satisfactory and cheaper. But for jgtions om the export of Hour to foreign countries, China might become a competitor to be reckoned with in the general markets of the world; om her own.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.