Evening star., 1925-03-31
MONTREAL LEADS
IN WHEAT EXPORTS
Staff of Life Has Proved
Magic Wand for Canada's
Great Metropolis.

For the fourth successive year
Montreal announces it's supremacy as
the greatest wheat exporting city in
North America SO great is the yellow
flow through Montreal that it's ship
ments abroad exceeded the combined
exports Of its seven chief rivals in
the United States-New York. Calves
ton. New Orleans, Philadelphia, Balti-
more, Norfolk and Boston-up to
September of last year.
The staff of life has been a magic
wand for the Canadian metropolis"
says a. bulletin of the National Geo
graphic Society from its headquarters
at Washington.
Panorama of Wheat.
Waving it, Montreal raises another
skyscraper on her water front. Take
an elevator to the fifteenth floor of
No. l. st. Lawrence River, Montreals
chief wheat Office look out of win
dow to the west, and the story of
Montreal and it's part in supplying
that grain lies revealed.
"At ones feet an ocean liner rests
snugly against a wharf, beside a long
gallery which sprouts below like
root of the skyscraper itself. Within
that gallery huge, wide. running belts
are man made creek beds for a
stream bank full Of wheat. The liner
is receiving in its hold the product of
more than 10 acres of wheat land
every minute.
CLOSE under the protecting shadow
OF the liner lies smaller steamship.
1t has lines like a German dachshund
Much open deck lies between the su-
perstructures fore and aft. Beneath
the matches which cut the deck into a
gridiron is more yellow wheat from
Port Colborne, Ontario, waiting to be
stored in the grain elevator. In the
open water of this harbor sector fret
ting tugs line up at appointed places
like cavalry horses. Now and then,
with a snort of white steam and a
puff of black smoke, they dart from
their company front on double-quick
to push some ocean leviathan in or
out Of it's berth.
Neck of Grain Bottle.
AT the right of the tug line is the
main neck of North Americas wheat
bottle, the end of the Lachine Canal
Montreal is the queen of wheat ports,
and more than so per cent of her
yellow gold comes down the st. Law
renee by water. Over to the left the
sun catches the CLINT of white water
on the Lachine Rapids, head Of navi-
CATION OF the 1,000-mile nature-made
canal which is this bottles mouth
Braving the rapids is the spidery
black line or the Victoria Bridge, with
trains shunting across it almost con-
stantly. To the right, under wooded
Mount Royal. is the city, founded by
Chevalier Maisonneuve, but built as
much as anything by wheat.
''Westward the canal and railroad
blend with the smoky mist through
which one seems to see the winding
miles of river. the blue of the Great
Lakes and the breadth OF the valleys
of the Red River and Mississippi
fiat plains where the sky is cover
pressed to earth at the horizon and
wheat Is filling between the crusts.
Montrears life springs are in Mani
toba, Saskatchewan, Minnesota and
the Dakotas, where Winter white
gives way to green in Spring, golden
in Summer, brown stubble in Fall and
back to white again.
Assume out there a farm where
nothing but wheat grows, where
there were no houses, no trees, no
waste land-just wheat. If 1t pro-
duced on an average of Is bushels
to the acre, that farm would have to-
be half as large as Indiana TO raise
enough wheat to satisfy MontreaTs
shipping demands for the past year.
Works from the Top.
Most things must be viewed from
the bottom up, but not a Montreal
grain elevator. 1t works from the
top down. AS soon as a boat OF train
is emptied, the wheat goes by con-
veyors to the top, finding lodging in
huge bins. On the next floor below it
is weighed. Stationed at a battery OF
huge containers, dusty workmen let
in a food of wheat from above. They
can estimate a ton to a fraction of
pound. Released by lever, the
grain falls a floor to a hve-foot NOV
ing belt. Almost before it can settle
down to a pleasant ride II reaches
big steel cart on rails, which pre-
cipitately dumps it into what looks
like a bottomless pit, but isn't Later
the wheat will emerge from the pit
for another belt ride, through gall
leries stretching a mile and quarter
along the water front, to be dumped
summarily into an ocean liner or
tramp
Receiving grain is more compli-
Gated than dispatching 1t. At Du-
luth or Port Arthur or Fort William
big lake freighters take wheat from
box cars and. bring 1t to Port Col
borne, at the head of the Wellington
Canal, or to Buffalo or Cleveland II
1t goes out through the United States
At Port Colborne steamers that can
Just squeeze through the locks of
the st. Lawrence canals take on the
wheat. At Montreal finally, huge
bucket conveyorS are lowered from
the elevator through the matches and
start the grain to the skyscraper's
top. AS grain in the ships hold gets
low men with huge steel scoops go
in. A rope is attached to each scoop
and when the workman has dug 1t
into a pile of grain a. winch on sig
nal pulls it UP to the conveyor snout
filing the buckets with grain. Four
lake steamer loads, or train of 116
cars of grain, are required to fill an
average ocean tramp.
Toying With Freight Cars.
Automatic car bumpers have been
installed in some Montreal elevators
Picking up a loaded car like a toy,
they push in the door, tip the car
on it's side, empting the wheat into
g. pit and set it back on it's wheels
at the rate of one box car in a little
less than 10 minutes.
Farmers should never go to grain
elevators. Confidence that ones ef-
forts are doing something for the
world is a handmaiden to happiness.
Back in Minnesota 200 acres of wav-
ing wheat inspire pride in farmer's s
heart but they do not cut much of a
figure in Montreal. If the farmer
came to the Canadian metropolis he
could uiaw tho arrival ~