Ch. X] ON WHEAT. 139 



ever early the true winter-wheat may be sown in autumn, it will not pro- 

 duce stems in the same year ; but the real spring-wheat will do so if sown 

 any time before midsummer. 



Tiie various species of wheat are indeed frequently found to alter their 

 character, through the difference occasioned by change of soil and climate. 

 To point out such marked distinctions as would make each variety accu- 

 rately known, by merely mentioning their names, would therefore be a 

 hopeless task, for the shades of difference are in most cases so small, that 

 one might easily be mistaken for another. There are, however, two dis- 

 tinctions which run through every species of winter, or Lammas wheat, and 

 these consist in the colour of the grain, which is either while or red ; that 

 of the straw not always partaking of the difference, but being sometimes 

 lightly coloured when the corn is nearly brown. There are also two 

 general varieties of these, the grain of which may be classed as the thick 

 and thin husked, or the " downy-chaffed," and the " smooth- chaffed. 



The red wheat, or thick-skinned quality, is usually grown upon the 

 strongest clay land, and degenerates slightly when sown upon soils of a 

 lighter description. It is of various shades of a reddish brown, or deep- 

 yellow tinge, and generally retains the same hue, whatever may be the 

 quality of the ground on which it is produced. The outer husk is coarse 

 in proportion to the humidity of tlie soil, and consequently lowers the value 

 of the grain ; which, accordingly, bears a price in the market of from twelve 

 to fifteen, and sometimes twenty per cent, less than fine qualities of the 

 white. It is, however, so hardy, and so much better adapted to ensure the 

 production of a crop on wet and adhesive soils, that it is very generally 

 sown on land of that description. On fine loams, or soils of that kind 

 which are usually considered as good barley-land, the ivhite or smooth- 

 chaffed wheat is, however, preferred, from the thinness of the husk ren- 

 dering it more profitable to the miller. 



The downy-chaffed variety was formerly in the greatest repute ; both 

 from its generally producing the whitest and the finest flour, and from the 

 grain in consequence of the shortness of the straw, and the closeness of the 

 ear, being less liable to be shaken out by the wind at harvest-time, than the 

 smooth-chaffed tribes : qualities which peculiarly adapt it to land of so rich 

 a nature as to endanger the lodging of the crop. In consequence, how- 

 ever, as it is supposed, of the husk retaining the dew and moisture longer 

 than the other sort, it was found more liable to be affected by mildew, 

 and to be in other respects so much more tender, that it has fallen much 

 into disuse, and the thin-chaffed wheats are now more generally cultivated, 

 particularly throughout Scotland*. 



The different species of wheat which are the most profitable to the 

 farmer, must therefore depend upon the nature of the soil upon which it can 

 be best produced ; for although the white Lammas will always command the 

 best price, yet it is more uncertain in its produce than the red, and land 



* A variety of this species was first cultivated, about thirty years ago, ou Coldiu^hain 

 Moor, in Berwickshire, by Mr. Hunter, of Tynefield, in East Lothian, from which it has 

 since taken its name, and is now so extensively sown in the neighbouring districts as to 

 be considered the standard of the thin-skinned Scotch species. 



Some red wheat of extraordinary productiveness has also been introduced within these 

 three years from Mark-lane into East Lothian, of which the following description is 

 given in the catalogue furnished in the third Report of Drummund's Agiicultiu'al 

 Museum at Stirling: namely, '• ChaiT without down; joints close-set; quality of grain 

 superfine ; straw ten inches shorter than that of the Lammas red : tillers well ; is said 

 to be more productive of flour than any other variety, and to bake as well as the 

 best Dantzic wheat, while it has yielded to the growers, in 1832, from seventy to eighty 

 imperial bushels per Scotch acre. It also, in the following year, continued to yield 

 uncommouly well, and is liked by the bakers."' — F. 50, 



