BOOK XVIII. XX. 85-88 



XX. No grain is greedier than wheat or draws Loeai 

 more nourishment out of the soil. Common wheat I ,7/i"al*** "' 

 may properly designate the choicest variety, whether 

 in whiteness or goodness or weight. It is suitable 

 for moist districts Hke those in Italy and Gallia 

 Comata, but across the Alps it only keeps its char- 

 acter in the territory of Savoy and Reims, while in 

 the other parts of that country it changes in two 

 years into ordinary wheat. The cure for this is to 

 select its heaviest grains for sowing. Common wheat ficut 

 flour makes bread of the highest quahty and the ^'^J^^^"^ 

 most famous pastiy. The top place in Italy is taken 

 by a mixture of Campanian conmion wheat flour with 

 that grown at Pisa, the former being reddish but the 

 chalk-hke Pisa variety whiter and heavier. A fair 

 yield from the Campanian grain called ' boltcd ' is to 

 give four sixteenths of fine flour to the peck, or from 

 what is called common grain, not bolted, five six- 

 teenths, as well as half a peck of fine flour and four 

 sixteenths of the coarse meal called ' seconds ', and 

 the same amount of bran ; whereas Pisa wheat 

 should give four sixteenths of prime flour, while of 

 the other kinds the vield is the same. The whcats 

 of Chiusi and Arezzo give an additional sixteenth of 

 prime flour, but in the remaining qualities they are 

 on a level. If however it is wished to make special 

 flour, the return is sixteen pounds of bread and three 

 pecks of seconds and half a peck of bran. This 

 dcpends on (Hfferent methods of milhng;- for grain 

 ground when dry gives more flour, but if sprinkled 

 with salt water it makes a whiter meal, but keeps 

 more back in the bran. The name for flour, yanwa, 

 is obvinusly derived from far, emmer. A peck 

 of flour made of Galhc common wheat gives 20 



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