Wester: Adlav 



227 



2,500 kilos of grain to the hectare. 

 Eighteen bushels of wheat per acre is 

 equivalent to 1,225 kilos per hectare. 



The figures given are for the yield of 

 unimpro\'ed varieties of adlay. Much 

 larger har\-ests may be expected from 

 the application of systematic breeding 

 such as has been used with other 

 cereals. An increase of from ten to 

 fifteen per cent is not an unreasonable 

 expectation. 



It appears from an analysis made by 

 Dr. A. W. Wells, Chief of the Division of 

 Chemistry and Mr. F. Agcaoili, Chief 

 of the Section of Food Analysis, 

 Bureau of Science, Manila, that the 

 hulled grain of adlay approximates 

 wheat in composition, but with greater 

 fat content, and that it is a far better 

 balanced food than rice or corn, the two 

 great staple grains of the tropics^ 



The one great difficulty of the adlay 

 grain is the lack of moist gluten. This 

 difficulty is overcome by adding wheat 

 flour in the proportions already men- 

 tioned for making bread and biscuits. 

 In composition this bread is, for all 

 practical purposes, equivalent to wheat 

 bread. 



In a more detailed discussion of adlay 

 in a recent issue of the Philippine Agri- 

 cultural Review, it was pointed out that 

 this grain may be grown wherever rice 

 is cultivated. Where the growing wet 

 season is followed by a dry period it 

 is more productive than rice and it 

 should be possible to grow and harvest 

 adlay with machinery like that used 

 for wheat. This makes its cultivation 

 easier than that of rice, which must 

 be grown in paddies and since the 

 preparation of rice paddies and the 

 transplantation of the rice plants is the 



hardest and most disagreeable of farm 

 occupations, the culture of adlay would 

 have many advantages. It would 

 appear, then, that with lowered pro- 

 duction cost and a larger ^neld of better 

 grain per unit area, adlay is destined 

 to supplant rice as the leading staple 

 grain, not only in the Philippines, but 

 possibly throughout a very large part 

 of the tropics. 



POSSIBILITIES OF THE ADLAY 



This year (1922) the Bureau Oi 

 Markets and Crop Estimates, United 

 States Department of Agriculture, con- 

 ducted a series of milling experiments 

 with adlay shipped from the Philip- 

 pines and bread making tests with the 

 flour obtained. The milling was done 

 by Mr. James F. Hayes, Milling Tech- 

 nologist, and the baking by Mr. Walter 

 K. Marshall, Acting in Charge, Milling 

 Investigations. Dr. C. F. Langworthy, 

 Chief, Office of Home Economics, 

 Bureau of Plant Industry, arranged for 

 a series of experiments which were 

 made by Dr. Minna C. Denton, 

 Assistant Chief. These culminated 

 in a demonstration adlay luncheon 

 served to the scientific staff of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture. Their expres- 

 sions regarding the samples tested 

 which included several kinds of bread, 

 biscuits, cakes, and pies, were unani- 

 mously favorable. The following state- 

 ment by Dr. Walter H. Evans, Chief, 

 Insular Stations, States Relations Ser- 

 vice, is typical: "The adlay products 

 were very palatable, and it would seem 

 to me the grain offers great possibili- 

 ties for the tropics." 



