The Conquest of the Desert 



Agriculture made an interesting experiment to 

 test the relative value of durum wheat for bread- 

 making. A certain amount of flour from durum 

 wheat and common wheat was set aside, and 

 two sets of loaves were baked from the different 

 flours. These two lots of loaves were marked, 

 and sent out to over two hundred persons for 

 inspection and report, accompanied by a circular 

 letter containing eight questions. The people 

 to whom the loaves were addressed were care- 

 fully selected, and included prominent millers, 

 bakers, chemists, and teachers of domestic 

 science. The result of their replies was summed 

 up as follows : " The general opinion, therefore, 

 of the relative value of the durum-wheat loaf 

 as against that made from other flour is 108 to 

 74 in favour of the durum-wheat loaf." 



Before me lies a note on the Russian durum 

 wheats, by Mr A. Kovenko, taken from a recent 

 report of the Ministry of Agriculture, and kindly 

 translated and forwarded by the British Am- 

 bassador at St Petersburg. 



Mr Kovenko writes : 



" Numerous as are in Russia the varieties of 

 soft wheats, the chief place among our wheats 

 belongs to hard wheats Triticum durum the 



108 



