FIELD CROPS 275 



or the teeth. Put this gluten into a hot bake oven or 

 stove, and it will rise up into a bubbly or spongy mass, 

 showing how bread dough made from wheat flour 

 will rise and make light bread, because the tough gluten 

 keeps the steam bubbles from bursting. 



Make the same experiment with oat or barley flour. 

 You will get starch, but no stringy, tough gluten, only 

 a crumbly mass. Hence dough and bread made from 

 the flour of these grains will not rise and become spongy. 



Wheat having much gluten is hard and of dark color, 

 and is valued most. When grown in hot, dry climates, 

 like that of California, the hard wheats are apt to lose 

 part of their gluten and become light-colored and soft. 

 So we must from time to time get seed from other parts 

 of the country, as from Minnesota, where wheat has 

 the most gluten. 



With a sharp knife cut across a grain of hard and one 

 of soft wheat, and note the difference. Sometimes 

 grains are partly hard and partly soft, and look spotted. 



The best wheat is generally thought to be "winter wheat/' 

 that is, that which has been sown in autumn and has had 

 time to make deep roots in winter, even under the snow, and 

 to " stool, " so as to produce many stems from one seed. 

 Spring wheats are those sown after January in California, 

 or elsewhere, as soon as the frost is out of the ground. Spring 

 wheats are usually softer than winter wheats grown in the 

 same regions. But where no rain falls before winter, as in a 

 large part of the arid region (eastern Washington, Montana, 

 Wyoming), all grains must be sown in spring. For if sown 



