Wheat Production in New Zealand. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE CONSUMPTION OF WHEAT. 



1. Uses of Wheat. 



The wheat industry is so widely distributed, and 

 its products are of such universal service, that it is 

 necessary to consider briefly the important factors 

 of marketing and consumption in the great wheat 

 producing areas before discussing in greater detail the 

 problems which the industry gives rise to in our own 

 field of production. Prom the earliest time the product 

 has been used as a human food. The traditional use 

 of wheat for bread has not only blinded our vision to 

 the variety of uses to which wheat may be adapted, 

 but it has also deadened enterprise in the production 

 of other foodstuffs. 



The main product of the industry is flour, the chief 

 ingredient in many varieties of foodstuffs other than 

 bread. These foodstuffs owe their growing popularity 

 not so much to their superiority in sustaining life as 

 to their greater palatability and general attractive- 

 ness. The manufacture of crackers or biscuits, an 

 important foodstuff from the wheat industry, is now 

 a trade peculiar to itself, while macaroni, one of the 

 latest products of the industry, in its numerous forms, 

 is a palatable and nutritive food. It is relatively 



