42 THE CEREALS IN AMERICA 



the breadmaking value of the flour may in such cases be 

 increased by mixing in proper proportions the wheat or the 

 flour made therefrom.^ Snyder states that the most valuable 

 wheats for breadmaking are those in which eighty to eighty- 

 five per cent of the protein is gluten and the gluten is composed 

 of thirty-five to forty per cent glutenin and sixty to sixty-five 

 per cent gliadin. He reports a variety of wheat from India 

 with a ratio of 27 173 and one from the Argentine Republic 

 with a ratio of 58 : 42. ^ The value of a flour depends, therefore, 

 more relatively upon the quality of the gluten than upon the 

 per cent of the nitrogenous compounds contained. 



71. Gliadin. — With water containing salts or mineral matter gliadin is a 

 plastic substance which may be drawn out into sheets or strings. By proper chem- 

 ical manipulation it may be reduced to a snow-white powder. When distilled water 

 is added to this powder it becomes sticky, but if a ten per cent solution of salt 

 (sodium chloride) is added, it is non-adhesive, although plastic. Gliadin is soluble 

 in distilled water, very soluble in seventy to eighty per cent alcohol, but is insoluble 

 in water containing salts or in absolute alcohol. It is soluble in dilute acid 

 and alkalis and may, therefore, be soluble in wheats that have undergone fermen- 

 tation. 



72. Glutenin. — Is the proteid which is left after dissolving the gliadin from 

 •the gluten with dilute alcohol. It is distinguished from gliadin by its lesser sol- 

 ubility, its darker color, and by being non-adhesive and non-plastic. It is insol- 

 uble in water, saline solutions and dilute alcohol, but is soluble in dilute acids and 

 alkalis, from which it may be precipitated by neutralization. 3 



73. Relation of "Weight Per Bushel to Nitrogen Content. — 

 The usual and commercial standard of quality in wheat is the 

 weight per bushel, high weight being associated with qualities 

 desired by the miller. The following table gives the results of 

 eight favorable seasons for wheat and eight unfavorable seasons 

 with three conditions of fertility at Rothamsted : * 



1 Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci., Paris, 126 (1898), No. 22, pp. 1592-1595. 



2 The Chemistry of the Wheat Plant, pp. 276-277. 



3 The Proteids of the Wheat Kernel. By Thomas B. Osborne aixd Clark C 

 Voorhees. Am. Chem. Jour. XV (1893), PP- 47°"47i* 



•* Lawes, Sir J. B., and J. H. Gilbert. On the composition of the ash of wheat, 

 grain and straw, grown at Rothamsted in different seasons and by different manures 

 London (1884), pp. 105. 



