74 ENVIRONMENT AND MILLING QUALITIES. 



climatic conditions during harvesting or threshing. However, 

 I was able to remove that blemish by washing and scouring. 



Investigations I have made in the last twelve months and 

 recorded at the Portsmouth Meeting of the British Association, 

 show that wheat conditioning brings about small but fundamental 

 changes in the constitution of the flour. I have, therefore, amplified 

 my usual programme for conditioning such sample lots, and have 

 sought in still greater degree to give each lot the degree of con- 

 ditioning it required. With that object, I conditioned them all 

 slightly at the outset and then increased the percentage of added 

 water in those cases which would be improved by the addition. As 

 a result of this part of the investigation, the Muzaffarnagars and 

 Pusa 8 received much less conditioning water than the others. 

 A very great, indeed I may say an extraordinarily great improve- 

 ment was brought about in Pusa 22 in this way, and substantial im- 

 provements were made in Pusa 12 and Pusa 4. 



I baked almost all of them four times each. For the first two 

 trials in each case, I used flour, water, salt and yeast only. Al- 

 most invariably Indian wheat is mixed by British millers with other 

 kinds, so in the second round of baking trials, I used a typical 

 British flour milled from a mixture of several wheats, foreign and 

 English, taking in each case 50% of that flour and adding 50% 

 from each sample lot of Indian. For the third round, I used a very 

 small percentage of malt extract and grouped the flours according 

 to the place where the wheats had been grown. For the fourth 

 round, I again used the malt extract and reverted to the grouping 

 of flours according to the variety of the wheats. 



Following my usual custom, I examined each sample by eye 

 before milling : a method which is, of course, used by millers in 

 buying wheat, especially the first lot of any new kind. Having 

 finally written down all the data upon which I should form 

 opinions, I then referred to previous reports to see in what way 

 results had been affected by seasonal, or agricultural causes in 

 India, or any other way. 



