Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1872-06-25
JOHN Fl. CROZLER.

| l. cLCluSc you tIle SubSIitIlCe Vi MHtJ lllell
said. Yours respectfully, .-
JOHN Fl. CROZIER.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: The sub
ject allotted to me by your committee up
on which I am to address you is, the
Small Economies of East Tennessee y
| AS my time is restricted to twenty-seven
minutes, shall only be able to say some
thing TO you about the economy of your
wheat crops.
! Small economies sometimes assume gi-
gantic proportions, and such, [ will en-
deavor to show, may be the case with
you" wheat. If | shall be able to DEM
| Onstrate to you that when you sell your
wheat for dollar and half per bushel,
by proper economy and management you
ought to realize from dollar and eighty
cents to two dollars per bushel, / shall
believe have achieved something worthy
of your attention and consideration for
the aggregate saving would be to East
Tennessee between five hundred thousand
and million dollars.
When the price of wheat is one dollar
and half per bushel the price of flour
is almost Invariably nine dollars per bar
rel. This year, when wheat was sold at
one dollar and half per bushel, flour, at
retail, generally brought five dollars and
quarter per bag or ten dollars and
half per barrel Sometimes it sold as
high as five dollars and half or even six
per bag.
The miller generally takes five bushels
of wheat to make barrel of first-rate fam
lily flour, though itseems it should be made
from less quantity. Five bushels of
wheat weighs three hundred pounds. If
from this we deduct the toll (one-eighth)
which would be thirty-seven and a-half
pounds, it would leave two hundred and
siXty-t NO and a-half pounds. Out of this
the owner of the wheat would receive one
hundred and ninety-siX pounds of flour
and SiXty-siX and one half pounds of Offal
Wheat is now cleaned much better than
formerly and there is seldom anything
lost by foreign substances in it. But we
will take off the odd six pounds and one
half for dust &C., which is liberal allow
lowance for marketable wheat and this
would leave sixty pounds of shorts and
bran worth at least two cents and a-half
per pound, or one dollar and a-half. The
five bushels of wheat at one dollar and fif-
ty cents per bushel, would be seven dollars
and fifty cents, the flour selling at nine
dollars per barrel. The person buying the
wheat and having it ground would make
through the flour alone one dollar and
fifty cents, and from the Offal another dol
lar and fifty cents, aggregating three dol
lars which the farmer loses on five bushels
of wheat; or in other words, his five BUSH
els of wheat for which he gets seven dol
lars and a-half brings into the pockets of
the speculatOr or miller who has it ground
ten dollars and fifty cents, or upwards of
two dollars per bushel.
If our farmers could save the OfIal of
their wheat by having it ground and sell
the flour, it would be great piece of econ
Omy that would be sensiblY felt There is
no better feed for stock than the straw of
wheat cut and mixed with the Offal But
besides this direct profit there would be an
indirect one, which is worthy of suggestion
and consideration. The farmers wheat
straw will not bear transportation far from
home; by feeding it and the offal of his
wheat from the mill, he would be able to
sell that much more corn and hay from his |
farm, both of which will bear transporta- |
ton to our neighboring States and sell for |
a good price. But our farmers in East Ten |
neSsee at this time can not have the sur |
plus of their wheat crops manufactured |
into flour because there are not mills |
enough to do the work. This is q strange |
and remarkable fact in a country celebrat- |
ed for its immense water power and in |
mill sites conveniently situated |
close to our railroads and navigable |
streams.
From all the information we can obtain |
there is but one county in East Tennessee
(Jhe county of Washington that has mills |
enough to grind its surplus wheat. Knox |
county, l am informed, has but twelve
mills that grind wheat and some of these
are not respectable enough to be called
flour mills. This is not enough to manu-
factuTe the flour that is consumed in the
county; consequently we get large guam
titles of -four from Washington county.
L have shown you that the usual profit |
on five bushels of wheat at dollar and a
half per bushel is three dollars, when
turned into flour and offal. This large
profit is the reason why the people of Geor
gia, where they grow but little wheat COM
pared to us, build mills and buy our sur
plus wheat and turn it into flour. Those
not having the water power that we have
in some instances, use steam. One
OF these mills, am informed, made profit
last year of one hundred and forty thou
sand dollars and this was principally off of
East Tennessee wheat.
If we had first rate mills and sufficient
i'll number to manufacture our wheat into
flour, East Tennessee flour would soon at |
tain wide spread and enviable reputa-
ton. In the year 1857 the wheat from East
tennessee was pronounced the best in the
market OF New York. Southern wheat
being richer and dryer than that grown in
the North, Southern flour bears the high
00V PA!N0 III ouI NOIGHeIu ClIloo anu Is dl-
ways in demand there, both for home con-
and expectation. l have been
told that the bakers of bread in our North
ern cities generally mix one barrel of |
Southern -four with two of Northern to
give their bread a more palatabIe taste and |
because the Southern flour being driver ab-
serbs more water and yields them greater
profits H"0E
The flour from the county of Washing
ton has reputation throughout East Ten
nessee. This is not because the flour from
that county is so far superior to that of our
other counties, but because there is enough |