1 64 



THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



THE GRAIN WEIGHT.— A STUDY OF WHEAT. 



B Y J. U. L L O Y D. 



HISTORICAL. 



T^HE cereal Trilicurn sativum is th 



* most valuable of food producing 

 plants, its seed, under the name of 

 " wheat," being the principal bread stuff 

 of civilized nations. The plant is ac- 

 cepted by some to have been a grass that 

 originated in the Mediterranean country, 

 but this impression seems largely to be 

 based on conjecture, and its origin as a 

 food plant is probably lost in the dark- 

 ness of antiquity. 



Scripture mentions the plant and by 

 some persons its origin has been ascribed 

 to ancient Egypt. China is said to have 

 introduced wheat 2700 years before 

 Christ. These points are records of 

 general history and pass comparatively 

 unaltered through ordinary literature. 



Standard modern dictionaries inform 

 us that the weight of the fruit of this 

 plant is the basis that six hundred years 

 ago in England was used to establish the 

 grain weight. Most authorities make 

 the same general statement to the effect 

 that a plump grain of wheat was used as 

 the standard employed to establish the 

 grain, but Prof. Remington (Remington's 

 Pharmacy) gives the matter a historical 

 record better than any other pharmacy 

 work consulted, and with which in a 

 general way my own researches agree. 



As the statements of authorities as a 

 rule coincide with that of Webster, it may 

 be taken as typical, to wit ; — " Graiyi. — 



* As a study of the grain weight in its connection with 

 the grain of wheat, perhaps this paper is sufficient. As 

 a study of wheat in an economic sense many gaps should 

 be filled. For example, England, New Zealand, and 

 Australia should each be averaged in an equal number of 

 specimens to those of other countries. And now I desire 

 to express my thanks to my friend. Dr. Sigrauud Wald- 

 bott, who, with painstaking care assisted in the detail 

 work of the investigation and to whose patience I am 

 largely indebted for the completeness of this paper.— L. 

 (Read at the 42d Annual Meeting of the American Phar- 

 maceutical Association, Sept., 1894). 



The unit of the English system of 

 weights, so-called because considered 



equal to the average of grains taken from 



the middle of the ears of wheat." This 



would lead us to believe that a grain in 



weight should be the counterpart of an 



avera':e grain of wheat. 



Concerning the origin of the grain 

 weight, C. W. Pasley, "Measures, 

 Weights and Money," London, 1834, p. 

 8, says : " — those days of feudal ignor- 

 ance, in which the standard of English 

 lineal measure was referred to the aver- 

 age length of a barley corn, and the 

 standard of weight to the average weight 

 of a dry grain of wheat from the middle 

 of the ear," which might also lead to the 

 inference that our present grain weight 

 represented the weight of an average 

 grain of wheat at the lime of standard- 

 ization. 



But careful preliminary weighings 

 which I had made of good samples of 

 wheat, convinced me that an inference 

 drawn to that effect would be erroneous, 

 and that modern grains of wheat do not 

 average a grain in weight. It is ex- 

 ceptional for a single, abnormally large 

 wheat grain to weigh a grain. 



Giving the literature on the subject 

 some further study, in order to find an 

 explanation of the inconsistency men- 

 tioned, I arrived at the fact, that while 

 the grain weight actually represented the 

 weight of average grains of wheat about 

 600 years ago, this standard was changed 

 200 years afterwards. 



Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia, 1893, 

 gjves the following summary of that fact 

 in the definition of the word " Grain : " 

 " Grain. — A statute of Henry III. (in 

 the year 1266) enacted that 32 grains of 

 wheat from the middle of the ear, well 

 dried, should weigh a pennyweight, of 



