86 OUE, FAEM CHOPS. 



for which it is made suitable. The principal ingredients in 

 the grain of wheat are gluten and starch ; indeed, wheats 

 generally are classed in two great divisions the " hard " 

 and the " soft ;" these divisions being determined by the 

 prevailing characters due probably to the relative propor- 

 tions of these ingredients in the grain, a large proportion 

 of gluten being the characteristic of the hard wheats, while 

 the soft wheats have less gluten but more starch. The 

 former are generally the produce of warmer climates than 

 our own Spain, Sicily, Italy, Algeria, India; the latter 

 are cultivated in climates more resembling our own, 

 as Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, North America, 

 &c. The hard wheats have a fine, semi-transparent skin, 

 are hard to bite, and then break with a white compact 

 fracture ; and owing to the large proportion of gluten they 

 contain, they furnish very "strong" flour, particularly 

 suited for the manufacture of pastry generally, of mac- 

 caroni, vermicelli, &c., and for those rich, paste-like sub- 

 stances of food so plentifully met with in the cuisines of 

 southern Europe. The soft wheats, though containing 

 less gluten, are richer than the hard wheats in the propor- 

 tion of starch they contain. This substance renders them 

 more valuable for other technical purposes to which wheat 

 is applied, as the manufacture of starch, brewing, distill- 

 ing, and vinegar-making. 1 Probably about 12 per cent, 

 may be taken as the average amount of gluten in our 

 home-grown wheats ; yet Vogel found 24 per cent, in Ba- 

 varian wheat, Davy obtained 21 per cent, from some 

 Sicilian, and 19 per cent, from wheat from Barbary. 

 Boussingault also tells us that his wheat, grown in Alsace, 

 yielded 17'3 per cent., while, in a specimen grown in the 



Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert " On some points in the Composition of Wheat- 

 grain, its Products in the Mill and Bread," in the Journal of Chemical Society, 

 vol. x. p. 1. 



1 The conversion of starch into sugar, then into alcohol and vinegar, being 

 merely the process of oxidation continued. 



