l->4 ENVIRONMENT AND MILLING QUALITIES. 



nitrogen i3orcentage. No milling and baking tests, however, seem 

 to have been made by Le Clerc, an omission which greatly reduces 

 the value of his work. 



In Canada, Shutt' has recently published .some observations 

 of a somewhat similar nature. It appears that in certain districts 

 of the North-West when hard wheat is grown on newly cleared 

 scrub land (locally known as ''breaking''), there is a tendency 

 to the production on such land of soft or so-called '' piebald " 

 wheat. Such grain is much lower in nitrogen content than the 

 original hard wheat used for seed, and is considered in consequence 

 to be a deteriorated product. The same seed (Red Fife) was 

 sown on " breaking " and summer-fallow land, the soil moisture 

 was determined and the resulting crops were analysed. With 

 one exception it was found that both the nitrogen content and the 

 consistency were affected by growth on the newly cleared land 

 compared with the sample obtained on summer-fallow land. On 

 the newly cleared land the grain was soft and starchy with a low 

 nitrogen content, while that grown on the older wheat land was 

 hard and high in proteids. In the following year (1906), the soft 

 sample was sown on freshly cleared land and also on land which 

 had been under wheat for some years. The former gave a soft 

 sample low in proteid like that sown wliereas the older wheat land 

 produced a flinty grain high in nitrogen. The results are appa- 

 rently due to the much greater moisture content of the newly 

 cleared land which prolonged the growth, deferred ripening thus 

 permitting of the deposition of more starch. It is unfortunate 

 that no milling and baking tests seem to have been made with 

 these samples, and that analytical data alone were secured- 



Some attention has been paid to these questions by continen- 

 tal observers. Eriksson,^ in Sweden, found that the consistency of 

 the grain was of no systematic value and depended more on the 

 season than the kind. Koernicke'^ at Popplesdorf, found that 

 there was often a change from floury grain to flinty and also the 

 reverse, and that these changes depended both on soil and season. 



1 Shutt, Report of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Canadian Seed Growers'" Association, 

 Ottawa, 1908, p. 52. 



* Eriksson, Die landw. Vcrsuchs-Staliontn, Bd. 4o, Heft 1 and 2, 1894. 

 3 Kocrnickc, Die Arlen und Vurietiiten des Oelreides, Berlin, 1885. 



