246 ENVrROXMEXT AND BAKING QUALITIES. 



experience that it has great intrinsic merits and can be rehed 

 upon to vary in its qualities ^^'ithin small limits only, the reputa- 

 tion of the wheat will grow and its relative commercial value will 

 increase. So it may easily happen that a new wheat of great 

 intrinsic worth, arriving in unattractive guise from a district 

 which has hitherto produced wheat of poor quahty, may realize 

 at the outset relatively poor prices on our markets and have to 

 overcome slowly the well or ill-founded prejudices due to its ap- 

 pearance, or even to its geographical source of origin, yet in time 

 the same wheat, even in the same unfortunate or deplorable guise, 

 may win its way to the real esteem of buyers, and command relatively 

 high prices in our markets. On the other hand, a wheat of 

 beautiful appearance, coming from likely quarters, may, in time, 

 because it is nondescript in quality, possessing no outstanding 

 merit of real import a nee, recede in relative commercial value 

 and leave the beginner or outsider wondering why merchants and 

 millers have such ' apparently cmious ideas as to the value of 

 wheats. 



In recent years, a good deal of work has been done by chemists 

 to ascertain the ultimate cause or causes of quality in wheat, but 

 it is true even now to say that they are unable to state with precision, 

 in terms of their own science, the characteri.stics of wheat which are 

 the ultimate causes of, or at any rate are correlated \vith, good 

 baking qualities, l^or present purposes, I have confined my en- 

 quiries, as to the (quality of the samples sent me, to their appearance, 

 and to their behaviour in the mill and bakehouse under commercial 

 conditions. 



Cleaning. Almost all of the sample lots arrived in first rate 

 condition. The wheats from Lyallpur and Gurdaspur, however, 

 were dirty and Pusa 12 from Bankipore was very weevilly, so these 

 wheats had to be specially ^'cleaned. 



Conditioning. From previous experience, I was aware that to 

 obtain flour and bread of optimum quality, some Indian wheats 



