LECTUKES AND ESSAYS BEAD AT INSTITUTES. 233 



move that they may have room. Work among potatoes should be stopped 

 when they begin to blossom, or they will give a second crop of small potatoes. 

 The best tool that I have yet seen for digging potatoes is a spading fork with 

 four flat tines. 



In conclusion I must say that I have not had time to give this paper the 

 study that this occasion demands. If, however, I have said enough to induce 

 more farmers to raise potatoes, and to show them that a crop of potatoes, even 

 though a partial failure, is better than a wheat crop, I have done some good. 



THE EIPENING OF WHEAT. 



BY K. C. KEDZIE. 

 [Read at GreenviUe and Macon Institutes.] 



The wheat crop of the United States is of great importance, because it is a 

 staple agricultural production in nearly every State and territory of our Union. 

 .The grain is also important, because it furnishes the leading article of food for 

 civilized man. Both as consumers and producers Americans are interested in 

 this leading cereal. Any circumstance, therefore, which may affect its produc- 

 tion or modify its nature as food, becomes a matter of general interest. 



One of the circumstances which has a modifying influence upon the quantity 

 and the quality of wheat is the time of cutting the grain. There is some 

 diversity of opinion respecting the time when wheat should be cut in order to 

 secure the best results, some advocating early cutting, and others recommend- 

 ing that the grain should become dead ripe before harvesting. The plea for 

 complete ripening, like the plea for flinty wheats as a class, is based upon the 

 claim that only the hard and flinty wheats have the desirable amount of gluten ; 

 that the early ripened and the soft wheats are so deficient in gluten that good 

 flour cannot be made from them, and only the hard wheats possess the requisite 

 amount of gluten. 



The true explanation of this exaltation of the flinty wheats, and the depreci- 

 ation of the soft wheats, is that there has been a revolution in the methods of 

 milling by the introduction of the patent process. Under the old method of 

 milling when the grinding was completed at one operation, the soft wheats were 

 in demand, and early cutting, while the ''berry was in the dough," was rec- 

 ommended. But since the new process has been introduced, in which the 

 grinding is accomplished in successive stages, and the highest prized and 

 priced flour is now made from the middlings, which formerly were discarded 

 as unfit for human food, a very different quality of wheat is desired. The soft 

 wheats are no longer in demand, but the hard and flinty wheats which will 

 produce the largest amount possible of middlings for purifying, making the 

 *• new process flour." The farmer is urged to discard his white winter wheat, 

 and to let his wheat stand till dead ripe, in order to secure the hard and flinty 

 berry. This is fair and legitimate, and should give offense to no one, for the 

 miller has the right to give the preference to one quality of wheat berry over 

 another quality ; but the case becomes different when he alleges as the ground 

 for such preference that the soft wheat is so deficient in gluten as to be inca- 

 pable of making good flour, and that the formation of gluten is one of the 



