56 ENVIRONMENT AND MILLING QUALITIES. 



breeder in increasing the amount of wheat grown, soon reaches 

 the limit imposed by these conditions. In the improvement of the 

 quality of the grain of Indian wheat however there is much greater 

 scope for the breeder. In general, the wheats of the country 

 have poor grain qualities, both from the milling aspect and also 

 from the point of view of breadmaking. Some Indian wheats do 

 not mill well while the majority have a reputation for producing 

 weak flour. 



In the improvement of the quality of Indian wheat it is of the 

 first importance to determine how far grain qualities are influenced 

 by environment, and in what tracts high quality wheats retain 

 their characters. Accurate information on the character of the 

 wheat produced in the various tracts and the extent of these 

 tracts will enable a scientific scheme of wheat distribution to be 

 drawn up for the whole of India. It is sometimes stated that high 

 quality wheats cannot be grown either on the black cotton soils 

 or under canal irrigation in the Indo-Gangetic plain, particularly in 

 the United Provinces and the Punjab which produce the bulk of the 

 wheat exported. One of the main objects of these experiments is 

 to test these views and to determine to what extent, if any, canal 

 irrigation interferes with high milling and baking qualities. 



The method adopted in this investigation is to compare, as re- 

 gards consistency, absolute weight, nitrogen content and milling and 

 baking qualities, several pure lines, of widely different quality, 

 grown at various stations. The stations have been selected so as 

 to include as many as possible of the most important wheat tracts 

 of the Indo-Gangetic plain as well as a few places representative of 

 the black cotton soil areas of Peninsular India. When a sufficient 

 number of well-chosen types of wheat, representative of the various 

 classes grown, have been tested in this manner it will be possible 

 to determine how far milling and baking qualities are affected by 

 environment and whether such a change is progressive or whether 

 it takes place once for all. 



In the previous paper the results obtained in 1908 and 1909 were 

 described. In both years it was found in the case of Muzaffar- 



