is less centralized than in the Northwest.23 The seven States having the largest percentages of mill elevators are, in the order of importance, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. With the exception of Missouri (Kansas City) no one of these States possesses a milling center anywhere nearly comparable with Minneapolis. Each of them, however, according to the census of manufacturers for 1914, produced over 3,000,000 barrels of flour in the census year, and all these States, with the exception of Oklahoma, were among the first 13 States in milling production in the same census year. MALTSTER ELEVATORS.-Nearly all maltster elevators, both line and individual, are located in Wisconsin, a fact probably attributable to the number of maltsters located in this State who obtained barley through their own country elevators. Section 14. Geographical distribution of warehouses. Of the 511 warehouses making returns, 283, or more than 50 per cent, are located in the Mountain and Pacific division. The explanation of this relatively high percentage of the warehouses in these States, as compared with the other three divisions (Appendix Table 2), is due to the fact that, as previously indicated, the great bulk of the grain on the Pacific coast is handled in sacks, and that in consequence there are relatively few elevators in the territory, the country grain being handled almost exclusively through flat warehouses. The Central division reported a total of 161 warehouses and the Southern and Middle Atlantic divisions only a comparatively small number. No warehouses of maltsters and no line warehouses were reported to the Commission in the Middle Atlantic division. In the Southern division only 14 line warehouses were reported, and as a result it seems possible to say that line warehouses are, practically speaking, confined to the Mountain and Pacific and Central divisions. It seems probable that the most of the warehouses in the Central division are relics of earlier days, since, according to all information the Commission was able to obtain, there is little or no handling of grain in the Central division except in bulk. Something over 36 per cent of the Mountain and Pacific warehouses are independents, nearly 31 per cent commercial lines, and a little over 22 per cent are owned by mill lines. In the States on the coast, especially in Washington and Oregon, the grain business is chiefly in the hands of mills and large grain merchandising concerns, and the line warehouses are largely the outgrowth of this situation. Until very recently the cooperative movement in the country grain business has not appeared extensively in this area, which accounts, presumably, for the relatively small proportion of cooperative houses reported. In the Pacific northwest there does not exist the same antagonism to the line company that is found in the northwestern grain States, for the reason that, as already stated, these warehouses are generally used chiefly for storage and only secondarily for merchandising. In the former area the farmer stores his grain in a warehouse, and receives there for a warehouse receipt. Samples of his grain are sent to many of the buyers and they send bids to the farmer, who sells when he desires, the warehouse receiving a * For further development of this point see Ch. IV, secs. 5 and 6. fee for storing the grain. This system eliminates the buying and selling country middleman, and consequently there is less likelihood of dissatisfaction with the warehouse on the part of the farmers. Another factor which places the farmer upon a somewhat friendly basis with commercial line and mill line warehouses is that in this territory such warehouses finance farmers to a considerable extent. This financial assistance is sometimes by way of furnishing sacks, though often an outright loan of money. The security for such loans is either a note or a grain contract. The distribution of elevators by types in the Mountain and Pacific divisions corresponds roughly to the distribution of warehouses by types. |