Oatmeal and Oats

Southland Times, Issue 14516, 16 December 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

Oatmeal and Oats

The great lexicographer, Dr. Johnson, defined oats as ‘Food for horses in England and men in Scotland.’ This sarcastic definition was well met by the Scotsman s rejoinder, ‘And where do you find such men and such horses.’ Scotland is preeminently the ‘Land o’ Cakes,’ and oatmeal porridge is still ‘Scotia’s halesome food.’ But, although the oats grown in Scotland are undoubtedly superior to those grown in foreign countries, it is a significant fact that a large proportion of the oatmeal consumed by the people of Scotland is made from foreign and inferior oats. It is no doubt true enough that some of our home millers use a considerable proportion of cheap foreign oats in the preparation of the product which they sell as ‘best Scotch oatmeal,’ and in such a case the oatmeal from foreign eats finds its way into consumption through a fraudulent channel. But it is also, at the same time, a notorious fact that the public are led, through sheer force of advertising, to purchase ‘ Quaker Oats and other foreign brands of oatmeal, made from inferior oats, in preference to the oatmeal made from home-grown oats, which are much superior to any foreign oats. It is equally true, of course, that the great majority of those who purchase ‘Quaker Oats,’ or other foreign brands of oatmeal, have no idea that they are purchasing meal which is made from foreign oats which are immensely inferior to home-grown oats The Yankees, with their characteristic inventiveness and enterprise, have erected the most up-to-date plant for the manufacture of oatmeal, which, by the modern processes of manufacture, is made very palatable, though it may be from oats which are much inferior to home oats. From the quern or handmill used by the ancients for the grinding of grain into meal or flour, there was but a comparatively short step to the method of the burnside miller, which consisted of the threefold operation involved in drying, shelling and grinding between the upper (and the nether millstones. But the latter rather primitive method, though it served well enough in former days, cannot be compared with the modern and greatly improved system of manufacture invented and followed by American manufacturers, and now adopted by many of the large milling firms in and around the large cities. In the August number of the British Journal of Commerce, there is an interesting and well illustrated article on the mills of Messrs John Inglis <fc Sons, Leith, who, like many other first-class millers, have for years used the most up-to-date appliances and methods of manufacturing oatmeal. The difference between these up-to-date methods and appliances, as compared with those of the burnside miller, is as great as the diffepence between the quern and the burnside mill. One point we note is that in the mills of Messrs Inglis-as is also the case, we believe, in most of the other up-to-date city or suburban ‘mills —the light and poorly 7 developed grain is withdrawn by suction from the full-bodied well-developed grain used for making ‘Mid-Lothian Oatmeal.’ If it be asked what becomes of that poorly developed grain thus rejected in the up-to-date mill from the manufacture of the best oatmeal, the reply is that it is used for making ‘chop,’ to be sold to contractors and others for the feeding of horses. This brings us to the point we wish to emphasise, namely, the advisability of farmers dressing their grain thoroughly, and thereby having a heavier and better sample to sell to millers, the lighter oats being retained for feeding purposes. It is surely not good policy on the part of farmers to sell their home-grown oats in a half-dressed state at 18s per quarter, when they might get 19s orjeven more for it if it were well dressed, in -which case they would have their own light grain for feeding purposes, instead of buying light foreign oats at 16s or 17s per quarter for feeding their stock with. Those millers who, with commendable enterprise, are striving to rescue the oatmeal trade from the grasp of the foreign competitor by using the most modern and improved appliances and methods of manufacture, have necessarily to remove that poorly developed grain from the good wellgrown grain used for making the best oatmeal, and they must, therefore, buy the halfdressed grain at a proportionately lower figure than they would willingly give for well-dressed grain. Besides, there is a considerable leakage of money and labour on the part of the farmer in driving or railing his own light grain to a miller, and then driving or railing home a lot of light foreign grain which is very similar in quality to the light grain mixed among his own good grain. This is a point which is well worthy the consideraiion of farmers. —N.B. Agriculturist.