WINNIPEG, 1909. UO 
While equally striking differences have not been discovered in wheat, 
barley, emmer, spelt, peas, soy beans, or corn, the range has been remark- 
ably wide in all of these classes. The purest strain of Mensury barley 
obtainable has yielded a number of distinct types with widely different 
characters, which have so far given every evidence of high yield and fixity 
of type. The outstanding point, which even the most casual observer never 
fails to note, is the remarkable uniformity which characterises the different 
strains, while length of straw, time of ripening and general conformation 
make their appeal to the eye of the cerealist. 
From our work we are not prepared to say that this remarkable 
uniformity will continue. Sufficient work has been done to direct atten- 
tion to the need of a more careful study of the individuality of plants and 
to emphasise the still more important point that this range is as wide in 
the projected efficiency of the plants as it is in the morphological differences. 
It may also be of service in drawing attention to the necessity of obtaining 
fuller knowledge of the parentage of plants mated before breeding is under- 
taken by crossing or by hybridising. 
7. Quality in Wheaten Flour. By A. KE. Humpnrims. 
Good quality is an outcome of excellence in several respects ; these have 
been stated to be strength, colour, flavour. This list, however, should be 
extended to cover at least five qualities, as the term ‘strength’ frequently 
includes (a) ‘ stability,’ which should be taken to indicate the facility with 
which large masses of dough can be handled in the bakehouse; (b) the 
capacity for making a large quantity of bread from:a given weight of flour; 
(c) the size and shape of loaf. 
These subdivisions of ‘strength’ should be regarded as essentially 
different characteristics, frequently combined in the same flour but in 
reality independent units of quality. Strength should be defined as ‘the 
capacity for making large, shapely and, therefore, well-aerated loaves.’ 
High dietetic value is the result of the proper combination of various 
qualities and need not therefore be specified as a separate characteristic. 
It should be remembered that in the economy of Nature wheat is 
a seed. The true function of the husk is to protect the food of the 
plantlet, and it therefore resists disintegration and can be found in 
existence in the ground six or nine months after planting. The endosperm 
or kernel is converted by the action of enzymes, operating on a damp or 
wet pabulum, into the food of the plantlet until the latter is able to get 
its sustenance from soil and air. These agents and operations have to be 
controlled or influenced by the miller and baker when wheats and wheaten 
flour are diverted from their natural functions to use as food for man. 
Flavowr.—If an extremely small proportion of diastase—say 0.02 per 
cent. of absolute diastase or its equivalent in the malt extracts of com- 
merce—be added to flour in milling or in baking, a very perceptible improve- 
ment in flavour is produced. If sugar itself be added its effect on flavour 
is either nil or harmful. It seems, therefore, that the improvement in 
flavour due to the addition of diastase is caused by the production in 
fermentation of intermediate products of a dextrinous nature. An im- 
provement in flavour is usually or frequently correlated with an increased 
moistness of the bread. The water-retaining capacity of dextrinous matter 
is well known. One charge against modern milling is that the germ of 
wheat is now extracted. In a Paper (‘Modern Developments of Flour 
Milling’) read before the Royal Society of Arts in 1906 the author showed 
that a substantial proportion of the germ was extracted by millstone milling, 
but a larger proportion is extracted by roller milling. The percentage of the 
