Fig. 7. Loaves made from No. 1 Manitoba. Strength 100
Fig. 8. Loaves made from average English wheat. Strength 65
Fig. 9. Loaves made from Rivet wheat. Strength 20
In order to make flour which will bake bread to suit the taste of the general public of the present day, the miller finds it necessary to include in the mixture or blend of wheats which he grinds a certain proportion of strong wheats such as Canadian, American, or Russian. The quantity of strong wheat available is limited. Consequently strong wheat commands a relatively high price. The average difference in price of say No. 1 Manitoban and home grown wheat is about 5s. per quarter. It is possible of course that the public taste in bread may change, and damp close textured bread may become fashionable. In this case no doubt the difference in price would disappear. Under present conditions the necessity of including in his grinding mixture a considerable proportion of strong foreign wheat is a distinct handicap against the inland miller as compared with the port miller. The latter gets his foreign wheat direct from the ship in which it is imported, whilst the former has to pay railway carriage from the port to his mill. The question naturally arises—is it not possible to grow strong wheats at home and sell them to the inland miller?
This question has been definitely answered by the work of the Home Grown Wheat Committee during the last 12 years. The committee collected strong wheats from every country where they are produced, and grew them in England. From the first crop they picked out single plants of every type represented in the mixed produce, for strong wheats as imported are usually grades and not pure varieties. From the single plants they have established pure strains of which they have grown enough to mill and bake. From most of the strong wheats they were unable to find any strain which would produce strong wheat in England. Thus the strong wheat of Hungary when grown in England was no stronger than any of the ordinary typical home grown wheats. But from the strong wheat of Canada was isolated the variety known as Red Fife, which makes up a very large proportion of the higher grades of American and Canadian wheats, and this variety when grown in England was found to continue to produce wheat as strong as the best Canadian. Year after year it has been grown here, and when milled and baked its strength has been found to be 100 or thereabouts on the scale above described. Finally it was found that a strain of Red Fife which had been brought over from Canada 20 years ago, and grown continuously in the western counties ever since, under the name of Cook’s Wonder, was still producing wheat which when ground and baked possessed a strength of about 100. Thus it was conclusively proved that in the case of Red Fife at any rate the English climate was capable of producing really strong wheat. The strength of Hungarian and Russian wheats appear to be dependent on the climate of those countries. Red Fife, however, produces strong wheat wherever it is grown. It is interesting to note that this variety although first exploited in Canada and the States is really of European origin. It was taken out to Canada by an enterprising Scotchman called Fife in a mixed sample of Dantzig wheat. He grew it for some time and distributed the seed. Pure strains have from time to time been selected by the American and Canadian experiment stations.
But the discovery that Red Fife would produce strong wheat in England by no means solved the problem, for when the Home Grown Wheat Committee distributed seed of their pure strain of that variety for extended testing throughout the country, it was soon found to be only a poor yielder except in a few districts. A yield of three quarters of strong grain, even if it makes 40s. per quarter on the market, only gives to the farmer a return of £6 per acre, as compared with a return of nearly £8 from 4½ quarters of weak grain worth 35s. per quarter, which can usually be obtained by growing Square Head’s Master, or some other standard variety.
