AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 375 



rye, to be sure, was sown where it was supposed nothing 

 else would grow, — on light or "plain land," and without 

 grass-seed; but that does not excuse our not growing more 

 wheat, especially where land is to be stocked down to grass 

 or clover, for which purpose it is a better grain, and safer 

 than rye or oats, which are commonly used. 



In 1838 the Legislature of Massachusetts, perceiving the 

 decline of wheat-growing within the State, believing that 

 every farming community should to some considerable extent 

 raise its own breadstuffs, and realizing the importance of con- 

 tinuing and encouraging this branch of farm-industry, offered 

 bounties for wheat-growing as follows : " That to every 

 person who shall raise fifteen bushels of wheat shall be paid 

 two dollars, and five cents on each additional bushel, and, for 

 any person who shall raise the greatest quantity on any farm 

 (not less than five hundred bushels), one hundred dollars." 



Under the stimulus of that bounty, there were grown, in 

 1838-9, 108,570 bushels, and, in 1840, 157,923 bushels, aver- 

 aging sixteen bushels to the acre, which was not only above 

 the average of the country, but was the largest yield of any 

 one of the United States, as was the yield of 1875 of over 

 20 bushels. Why is it that the 9,670 acres of forty years 

 ago have dwindled down to 677 in 1875? It can be grown, 

 and is, in some parts of the State, and yields and pays better 

 than any other grain-crop. 



It costs no more to stock down land with wheat than with 

 rye in the fall, or with oats in the spring : it pays more, and 

 it is a better grain for that purpose. 



There is no question but that our home-grown and ground 

 wheat makes better and more nutritious flour than the very 

 white, patent, scoured and bolted wheat of the Western mills, 

 and, for economy and health, should be encouraged here. 



Wheat is composed largely of starch (something more than 

 one-half) and gluten (about one-fourth). The gluten is 

 the nutritive part, forming muscle, but it is not white ; and 

 Western millers have patented various devices to free the 

 flour from that portion of the grain which shall detract from 

 its superlative whiteness, and they thus eliminate that which 

 is the most nutritious to an extent which our millers at home 

 jdo not and should not attempt. 



It is an unquestioned, chemical fact, that wheat, ground 



