The San Francisco call., 1904-07-17
CEREAL BREEDING.

Improvement of the quality of wheat Where wheat
- used the bread the vast majority of mankind
eat bread and butter without knowing just why, except
that their forebears did. The grasses are the most
widely distributed of any of the plants and the
useful All of cereals including corn. grasses,
The bamboo and sugar also grasses, the
Egyptian and Kahr corn rice and mlet in all its vari
etes.
The grasses and egumes have upon them the principal
responsibility for sustaining animal life the earth.
The grasses differ the chemical elements they store
and the grass varies that respect in different
localities and The first scientific brewing in
this country done Milwaukee While stuff called
beer is made of broken rice and and glucose real
beer is made only of barley malt and hops. When each
brewery employed chemist to test the lupune
OF the hops and the quality of the barley and supply
deficiencies by using and guard against surplus
by using less there brewed and excellent
quality of beer that would have made wassa Valhala
The experience of the brewers proved that barley
varies in strength and quality with the locality in which
1t IS grown and sometimes with the season. What the
put into the seeds they bear and the juices they
store they get from the soil and the air. Unlike
the legumes they principally soil feeders, and
find the material for their seeds and juices ground
Until the State Board of Trade took up as matter
vital to the States position wheat producer, proba-
bly, not in a million looked upon wheat except
invarabe thing. the everywhere. Now it
is known of many that only perfect barley make
good beer also only perfect wheat make good
bread
Some kinds of wheat more expert than others in
getting out of the soil what they want. The straw is
sened by slicate chosen from the soil by the plant
Silcae flint The plant finds it, makes it into solu-
ton takes up in its juices and recrystazes it the
external surface of the Now kind of wheat
will get less slicate than another. Its will be
weak and the crop will "crinkle the loss of the
The grain of wheat should contain starch and gluten
making fat, the ether muscle and strength. The
yirdc ~ CoI;f da6o; A..
secretion of gluten Either wheat soils exhaust
ed of gluten have skillfu and expert
wheat find it for Our wheat will mill into
proper -four unless mixed with the glunous grain of
Kansas and the Dakotas Our -four export goes princi
paly to Asia, where they want Strong" -four which
rich in gluten and gutinze our -four
lose market
1t is useful to study the history of the wheats are
importing to grist with Kansas had standing
a wheat State few years ago, and Minnesota held
the first place 4 producer OF that grain. Russian
Mennonite exile, introduced into Kansas Russian
wheat, which eagerly taken by such expert and
scientific mers Bowersock of Lawrence. and made
-four highly priced by every baker housewife and bread
eater in the State. Perhaps of them knew why
this wheat good. but the its
stock of gluten and proper proportion of starch The
grain superseded the Canada Club and tea wheats
of the Dakoas There are for believing that the
Minnesota wheat had the deficiency which the
State Board of Trade discoscs in ours. for beginning
five years ago the Minneapolis mles began largely
import Kansas wheat for combined gristng with their
At first they did this surreptitiousy and denied
it when charged with it. but sharp wheat in Kan
exposed them, and since then the importation and
mixture have become public commercial facts
1t is known that the decline in quality of wheat
respect its gluten has been with
the introduction and general of varieties that
used in the East, where also decline in the
quality of the flour. 1t is known that can breed
plants just as do animals. Man has produced one
strain of cattle for its butter fats and another for its
casein and still others for their beef quality. The
spreading knowledge of vegetable physiology teaches
that may breed plants in the way We may
easily have breed of gluten wheat of butter fat
cattle.
The wheat grower who will in his fields begin
the remedy of the crop is entitled his reward The
grower of grapes and of sugar beets is paid ac
cordng to the sugar content of his produce Every
grower therefore strives by ertzing, irrigation drain
age, angle of exposure to the and all other means
to increase the sugar The -four grisers will
be buying wheat tested for its gluten content and
varieties used that poor gluten will give way
to those that rich.
In selecting and breeding wheat, the Agricultural De-
partment Washington give much information 1t
has introduced already the macaron wheat Russian
grain that be rich in glucose to answer its pur-
pose and the department has also had hand for some
time experiments in cereal breeding. considerable
area California is always be used for wheat Until
domestic consumption overakes production It is TO be
valuable article of export 1t is the bread corn Of
the world and all that it is concern of man
kind AS the State Board of Trade never fails in anv
undertaking. its conduct of this experiment for renewal
of the quality of wheat will be watched with keen
interest