THE WHEAT CULTUKIST. 337 



to every hundred of grain, and corresponding amount of 

 straw. The amount of grain was not materially de- 

 creased, showing that the addition to the weight of the 

 grain was mainly in flour and not in bran. 



In a similar experiment the result showed a gain of 

 over fifteen per cent, in flour, from equal measures of 

 grain, and a gain of eight per cent, from equal weights 

 of grain. " English millers divide the product of the 

 wheat into three classes, styled flour, pollard, and bran ; 

 the sample cut when fully ripe gains fifty per cent, more 

 of pollard than that cut raw. This effect may be thus 

 explained : at the time of the first cutting while in the 

 raw state, the grain contains its largest amount of starch 

 and gluten ; at this period the grain has a thin skin, and 

 consequently less straw ; afterward nature thickens the 

 skin in order to protect the grain, thus changing a por- 

 tion of the starch into woody fibre. 



In a more extended experiment the difference in pro- 

 duce per acre may be thus stated : that cut when raw 

 yielded, per acre, nine hundred and ten pounds more 

 straw ; ninety pounds more flour ; thirty-five pounds less 

 pollard and sharps ; thirty-five pounds less bran ; twenty 

 pounds less waste, than that cut ripe. The real differ- 

 ence in value may be stated at from six to seven dollars 

 per acre. 



ISTor is this all which we can gain from early cutting. 

 I have heard good farmers admit that they sometimes 

 lost enough wheat by shelling out between cutting and 

 mowing away in the barn to seed the field, or in other 

 words, from one and one and a half to two bushels per 

 acre ; this loss is all prevented by early cutting, for grain 

 cut in the raw state, no matter how thoroughly dried, 

 will seldom if ever shell out if handled in the usual man- 



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