6. It has been fully shown, by the results of many trials, that the flour obtained by the second grinding of wheat, or the whole meal, contains more gluten than the fine flour. Hence the general use of the latter, and the entire rejection of the bran, is wasteful, and ought in every way to be discouraged.
7. It cannot but be gratifying to us that the average nutritive value of the wheat and wheat flour of the United States is shown by these analyses to be fully equal to, if not greater than, that afforded by the samples produced in any other part of the world. And it will, in my opinion, be chiefly owing to a want of proper care and of commercial honesty, if the great advantages which should accrue to this country from the export of these articles are either endangered or entirely lost.
| TABLE EXHIBITING THE PER CENTAGE COMPOSITION OF VARIOUS SAMPLES OF AMERICAN AND FOREIGN WHEAT FLOUR, BY LEWIS C. BECK, M.D. (1849). | |||||
| Kind of Wheat Flour, and from whence obtained | Water | Gluten and albumen | Starch | Glucos dextrine, &c. | Bran |
| Country Mills, New Jersey | 12.75 | 11.55 | 65.95 | 8.10 | .65 |
| West Jersey Wheat | 12.80 | 12.32 | 69.48 | 5.90 | .50 |
| White Wheat, New Jersey | 11.55 | 12.60 | 66.85 | 8.50 | .50 |
| Pennsylvania Wheat | 11.90 | 13.16 | 66.20 | 7.25 | .75 |
| ditto ditto | 13.35 | 12.73 | 66.90 | 6.50 | .52 |
| ditto ditto (2nd grinding) | 13.35 | 14.72 | 71.28 | .65 | |
| Pelham Wheat, Ulster Co., N.Y. | 10.79 | 13.17 | 67.74 | 7.60 | .70 |
| "Pure Genesee" Wheat | 13.20 | 11.05 | 75.20 | .55 | |
| Ohio Wheat, "fine" | 12.85 | 12.25 | 73.90 | 1.00 | |
| Ohio Wheat, "superfine" | 13.00 | 9.10 | 77.80 | .10 | |
| Winter Wheat, Ohio | 13.10 | 11.56 | 66.84 | 7.90 | .60 |
| ditto ditto (2nd grinding) | 13.05 | 12.69 | 73.61 | .65 | |
| Michigan Wheat, "superfine" | 13.25 | 11.10 | 74.80 | .85 | |
| Michigan Wheat | 12.25 | 10.00 | 67.70 | 8.75 | .75 |
| ditto ditto (2nd grinding) | 12.75 | 11.20 | 66.00 | 8.50 | 1.05 |
| Illinois Wheat | 12.73 | 14.61 | 65.20 | 6.45 | .80 |
| Magnolia Mill, St. Louis, Mo. | 13.13 | 10.27 | 69.75 | 6.15 | .35 |
| Mound Mill, St. Louis | 13.48 | 10.53 | 67.35 | 8.15 | .20 |
| Walsh's Mill, St. Louis | 12.70 | 10.63 | 69.40 | 6.65 | .40 |
| Washington Mill, St. Louis | 12.88 | 11.00 | 68.65 | 7.27 | .20 |
| Missouri Mill, St. Louis | 13.00 | 10.46 | 67.79 | 8.35 | .40 |
| O'Fallan's Mill, St. Louis | 12.85 | 11.25 | 68.24 | 7.00 | .66 |
| Phœnix Mill, St. Louis | 13.22 | 10.10 | 68.70 | 7.30 | .15 |
| Nonantum Mill, St. Louis | 12.10 | 11.02 | 68.60 | 7.93 | .35 |
| Franklin Mill, St. Louis | 12.25 | 10.29 | 69.85 | 7.26 | .35 |
| Eagle Mill, St. Louis | 11.00 | 10.15 | 69.50 | 8.65 | .20 |
| Winter Wheat, Missouri | 14.00 | 9.30 | 70.05 | 6.30 | .35 |
| Wisconsin Wheat | 12.80 | 13.20 | 68.90 | 6.50 | .70 |
| ditto ditto (2nd grinding) | 12.80 | 13.46 | 72.54 | 1.20 | |
| Maryland Wheat | 13.00 | 12.30 | 66.65 | 7.10 | .65 |
| Richmond City Mill | 11.70 | 13.00 | 67.50 | 6.90 | .50 |
| Haxall and Co., Richmond, Va. | 11.40 | 12.80 | 68.50 | 6.60 | .35 |
| Virginia Wheat, "superfine" | 12.05 | 12.95 | 74.50 | .50 | |
| Haxall and Co., "best brand, '49" | 11.40 | 13.25 | 68.20 | 6.25 | .60 |
| Haxall and Co., "2nd brand, '49" | 11.00 | 13.20 | 75.60 | .20 | |
| Richmond City Mill, '49 | 11.90 | 10.50 | 70.00 | 7.10 | .50 |
| Oregon White Wheat, Va. | 12.80 | 14.80 | 71.30 | 1.10 | |
| ditto ditto (2nd grinding) | 13.85 | 14.50 | 65.15 | 5.90 | .60 |
| Gallego Mill, Richmond, Va. | 11.50 | 13.50 | 68.35 | 6.00 | .65 |
| Ship Brandywine, Liverpool | 13.38 | 10.62 | 67.60 | 7.75 | .65 |
| Ship Fanchon, Liverpool | 13.83 | 11.38 | 67.45 | 6.34 | 1.00 |
| Ship New World, Liverpool | 13.65 | 11.60 | 65.80 | 7.70 | .65 |
| Ship Juniata, Liverpool | 12.50 | 14.14 | 64.20 | 8.36 | .80 |
| Ship Stephen Lurman, Liverpool | 11.65 | 13.18 | 64.50 | 9.55 | .68 |
| Ship Leila, Liverpool | 13.22 | 13.18 | 64.65 | 8.00 | .95 |
| Ship Oxenbridge, Liverpool | 13.90 | 10.13 | 68.42 | 7.30 | .25 |
| Ship Italy, Liverpool | 12.94 | & bran 10.60 | 68.56 | 7.90 | |
| Ship West Point, Liverpool | 14.30 | 12.30 | 63.00 | 9.45 | .95 |
| Ship W.H. Harbeck, Liverpool | 13.53 | 10.18 | 66.95 | 8.80 | .30 |
| Ship Princeton, Liverpool | 13.40 | 11.52 | 65.60 | 7.90 | .85 |
| Ship Columbus, Liverpool | 13.50 | 10.45 | 66.45 | 8.50 | 1.03 |
| Ship Russell Glover, Liverpool | 13.45 | 10.47 | 66.20 | 8.83 | 1.05 |
| Ship South Carolina, Liverpool | 13.80 | 9.00 | 70.80 | 5.95 | .38 |
| ditto ditto (2nd grinding) | 13.30 | 9.45 | 76.90 | .35 | |
| Ship Cambridge, Liverpool | 14.50 | 8.52 | 70.60 | 5.40 | .40 |
| ditto ditto (2nd grinding) | 14.10 | 9.10 | 70.55 | 5.45 | .20 |
| Ship Columbus, Liverpool | 14.85 | 8.47 | 76.48 | .20 | |
| ditto ditto (2nd grinding) | 14.15 | 9.00 | 76.60 | .25 | |
| Ship Ashburton, Liverpool | 13.55 | 11.68 | 69.22 | 5.30 | .25 |
| Wheat grown in Canada West | 12.80 | 7.23 | 74.12 | 5.10 | .75 |
| ditto ditto (2nd grinding) | 12.60 | 8.45 | 78.55 | .40 | |
| Chilian Wheat | 12.44 | 9.45 | 67.80 | 8.37 | 1.30 |
| Chilian Wheat | 12.85 | 8.65 | 71.60 | 6.10 | .60 |
| Valparaiso Wheat | 12.50 | & bran 14.55 | |||
| French Wheat | 13.20 | 9.85 | 69.00 | 7.65 | .30 |
| Spanish Wheat | 13.50 | 10.30 | 68.90 | 7.00 | .30 |
| Canivano Wheat | 11.33 | 16.35 | 63.10 | 6.50 | 2.30 |
| Canivano Wheat | 11.15 | 15.40 | 67.25 | 5.70 | .60 |
| ditto ditto (2nd grinding) | 12.60 | 18.70 | 67.00 | 1.70 | |
| Hard wheat, grown near Malaga | 10.87 | 12.15 | 64.38 | 12.60 & lactic acid | |
| ditto ditto (2nd grinding) | 10.00 | 14.50 | 60.20 | 15.30 | |
There is no crop, the skilful and successful cultivation of which on the same soil, from generation to generation, requires more art than is demanded to produce good wheat. To grow this grain on fresh land, adapted to the peculiar habits and wants of the plant is an easy task. But such fields, except in rare instances, fail sooner or later to produce sound and healthy plants, which are little liable to attacks from the malady called "rust," or which give lengthened ears or "heads," well filled with plump seeds.
Having long resided in the best wheat-growing district in the Union, the writer has devoted years of study and observation to all the influences of soil, climate, and constitutional peculiarities, which affect this bread-bearing plant. It is far more liable to smut, rust, and shrink in some soils than in others. This is true in western New York, and every other section where wheat has long been cultivated. As the alkalies and other fertilizing elements become exhausted in the virgin soils of America, its crops of wheat not only become smaller on an average, but the plants fail in constitutional vigor, and are more liable to diseases and attacks from parasites and destructive insects. Defects in soil and improper nutrition lead to these disastrous results. Soils are defective in the following particulars:
1. They lack soluble silica, or flint in an available form, with which to produce a hard glassy stem that will be little subject to "rust." Soluble flint is never very abundant in cultivated soils; and after they have been tilled some years, the supply is deficient in quantity. It is not very difficult to learn with considerable accuracy the amount of silica which rain-water as it falls on the earth will dissolve out of 1,000 grains of soil in the course of eight or ten days. Hot water will dissolve more than cold; and water charged with carbonic acid more than pure water which has been boiled. The experiments of Prof. Rogers of the University of Virginia, as published in Silliman's Journal, have a direct bearing on this subject. The researches of Prof. Emmons of Albany, in his elaborate and valuable work on "Agriculture," as a part of the Natural History of New York, show that 10,000 parts of soil yield only from one to three parts of soluble silica. The analyses of Dr Jackson, as published in his Geological Survey of New Hampshire, give similar results. Earth taken from an old and badly exhausted field in Georgia, gave the writer only one part of soluble flint in 100,000.
What elements of crops rain water, at summer heat, will dissolve out of ten or twenty pounds of soil, in the course of three months, is a point in agricultural science which should be made the subject of numerous and rigid experiments. In this way, the capabilities of different soils and their adaptation to different crops may be tested, in connection with practical experiments in field culture, on the same kind of earth.
Few wheat-growers are aware how much dissolved flint an acre of good wheat demands to prevent its having coarse, soft, and spongy stems, which are anything but a healthy organization of the plant. In the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, vol. 7, there is an extended "Report on the Analysis of the Ashes of Plants, by Thomas Way, Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester," which gives the result of sixty-two analyses of the ash of wheat, from as many samples of that grain, mostly grown on different soils and under different circumstances.
In this report are given the quantity of wheat per acre, the weight of straw cut close to the ground to the acre, and also that of the chaff. These researches show, that from ninety-three to one hundred and fifty pounds of soluble flint are required to form an acre of wheat; and I will add from my own investigations, that three-fourths of this silica is demanded by nature during the last sixty days preceding the maturing of the crop. This is the period in which the stem acquires its solidity and strength, and most of its incombustible earthy matter. The quantity of this varies from three to fifteen per cent. of the weight of the straw. Prof. Johnston and Sir Humphry Davy give instances in which more than fifteen per cent. of ash was found; and Prof. Way gives cases where less than three per cent. were obtained. The mean of forty samples was four and a half per cent. Dr. Sprengel gives three and a half as the mean of his analyses. M. Boussingault found an average of seven per cent. As flint is truly the bone of all the grass family, imparting to them strength, as in cane, timothy, corn, oats, rye, rice, millet, and the proportion of this mineral varies as much in wheat-straw, as bone does in very lean and very fat hogs or cattle.