228 STATISTICS or WHEAT CULTURE. 



should be left untried to devise some mode by which these frauds can be easily 

 and certainly detected. 



Injury sustained by breudstuffs during their transport and shipment. During 

 the past year, I have had abundant means of determining the nature of the in- 

 juries which are often sustained by our br^adstuffs in their transport from the 

 particular districts in which they are grown and manufactured to our commer- 

 cial depots, and in their shipment to foreign ports. As this is one of the most 

 important points connected with these researches, I have devoted much time to 

 its investigation. From the results of numerous analyses, I think it may be 

 safely asserted, that of the wheat flour which arrives in England from various 

 ports of the United States, a large proportion is more or less injured during the 

 voyage. The same remark may be made in regard to many of the samples sent 

 from the Western States to the city of New York. Their nutritive value is 

 considerably impaired, and without more care than is usually exercised, they are 

 entirely unfit for export. 



In my former report, I adverted to one of the great causes of the deteriora- 

 tion which our breadstuff's often suffer during their transport and shipment. 

 This was the undue proportion of the great disorganizing substance, water, 

 under the influence of what usually occurs, viz., an elevation of temperature 

 above the ordinary standard. My recent investigations have served only to 

 strengthen these views. There is no doubt that these are the conditions which 

 cause the change of the non-nitrogenous principles into acids (the lactic or ace- 

 tic), while a portion of the gluten is thus also consumed. 



I have tried a series of experiments in reference to the action of moisture 

 upon various samples of wheat and wheat flour. The samples were placed for 

 twelve hours in the oven of a bath with a double casing, containing a boiling 

 saturated solution of common salt, the temperature of which was about 220 

 de g. Fahr. Subjected to this test, 



100 grains of Milwaukie wheat lost 12.10 grains. 



Guilderland (Holland) wheat lost 9.35 



,, ,, Polish Odessa red wheat ,, 10.55 ,, 



,, ,, Soft Eussian wheat 8.55 



Kobanga wheat 8.15 



After an exposure of the dried samples to the air for two or three days, they 

 increased in weight from one to three grains in the hundred originally employed. 



Nineteen different samples of wheat flour, which lost by exposure to the 

 above heat from ten to fourteen grains in the one hundred, when similarly ex- 

 posed to the air for eighteen hours, again increased in weight from 8.40 to 11.50 

 in the hundred grains originally employed. 



These experiments show, what might indeed have been predicted as to the 

 general result, that wheat in grain, if not less liable to injury than flour, yet if 

 once properly dried, suffers much less from a subsequent exposure to air and 

 moisture. 



It is now ascertained that in presence of a considerable proportion of water, 

 wheat flour under the influence of heat undergoes a low degree at least of lactic 

 fermentation, which will account for the sowing of the ordinary samples when 

 exposed to warm or humid climates. The same result will inevitably follow 

 from their careless exposure in the holds of vessels. That this is particularly 

 the case with many of the cargoes of wheat flour shipped to Great Britain, there 

 is little reason to doubt. This may be partly owing to the great humidity of the 

 English climate, as the deterioration is observed as well in the flour which is 

 the produce of that country as in that which is received from abroad. 



It is stated by Mr. Edlin, quoted in an article on Baking, in the Encyclopedia 

 that, " as a general rule, the London flour is decidedly bad. The 



gluten generally wants the adhesiveness which characterizes the gluten of good 

 wheat." 



I have observed that, in the analyses of some of the samples of damaged 

 flour, the proportions of what is set down under the head of glucose and dex- 

 trine are unusually large. This is perhaps due to the change produced in the 

 tarch by the action of diastase, and which may under certain circumstances be 

 formed in wheat flour. It would seem, according to M. Gueriu, that starch may 

 .u-t-.'d on even at slightly elevated temperatures. In one of his experi- 



