The Milling of Wheat in the United Kingdom. 31 



nobody, so far as I am aware, has ever said that millstone flour 

 contained less ground germ than roller flour. Yet here is a 

 test made specially by a Government official, no doubt with 

 the greatest care, and the roller-made flour contains more ether 

 extract (oil) than the stone-made. Some of us, knowing that 

 germ is the principal source of oil in wheat, had conceived the 

 idea of taking high ether extract figures as an index of the 

 presence of finely reduced particles of germ in flour, and now 

 comes an impartial inquirer saying that in this, the only test 

 he made, the roller-made flour equalling only 70 per cent, of 

 the wheat ground, contained at least 20 per cent, more ether 

 extract than the millstone-made flour of the 74 per cent, 

 extraction. If, therefore, it be true to say, and it is not unsafe 

 to assume it, that the excess of ether extract in these cases is 

 due to the presence of more comminuted particles of germ in 

 the roller-made flour than in that made by millstones from the 

 same wheat, we have indeed a remarkable case, which cuts 

 right across commonly held beliefs on the point at issue. 

 However, I am not going to found u^pon this one case a state- 

 ment that millstone-made flour would ordinarily contain less 

 germ than a roller made one, but I do say that these analyses 

 provide valuable collateral support to the following state- 

 ments : — 



(rt) That germ is an oily substance resistant to disintegra- 

 tion : 



(&) That millstones produced broad flakes of bran when 

 the skin of the wheat ground was not friable ; 



(c) That by inference millstones were likely to flatten germ 

 rather than reduce it to a powder as fine as flour ; 



{d) That in point of fact, germ could be found, and with 

 difficult}' could bj separated from finished millstone 

 offal : 



(e) And that when the intermediate product of millstone 

 milling, then known as middlings, was ground by 

 rolls, germ could easily be extracted. 



It is, therefore, utterly wrong to say that the millstone 

 flour of forty years ago contained all the germ and that the 

 modern roller flour none, or that the former contained much 

 more than the latter. It may not have contained any more. 



Let us next consider the " semolina." The manifesto signed 

 by the eight eminent doctors, and published repeatedly by the 

 Daily Mail, said that ideal flour should retain " about 80 per 

 cent, of the grain, inchtding the semolina, and especially the 

 embryo or germ, now entirely discarded from fine white flour." 

 The wording is not lucid, and one is uncertain whether it 

 means that semolina as well as germ is entirelv discarded, but 



