12 Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. 1920 



ing and baking value was made by Woods and Merrill 17 . An 

 especially interesting feature of their investigation in its bearing 

 upon the observations reported in the present paper is their 

 study on the effect of the climate upon the physical appearance 

 and chemical composition of wheats imported from the North- 

 west and grown in Aroostook. They found that the wheat vari- 

 ties introduced from the Northwest changed their physical and 

 chemical character at the end of a single season, the change 

 being most pronounced in the increased size of the kernel. Rela- 

 tive to the effect of Aroostook environmental conditions upon 

 the protein content of Northwestern wheats the evidence from 

 the trials of Woods and Merrill is inconclusive. In the first 

 experiment one of the three varieties tested, Lamona wheat, 

 suffered at the end of the first season under Aroostook condi- 

 tions a large loss of nitrogen and a still larger loss in the gluten 

 content, while the Fife wheat showed only a small decrease in 

 gluten and the Bluestem wheat made a slight gain in protein, 

 both these varieties gaining in gluten. The results from the 

 second experiment in which two pure strains of Minnesota bred 

 Bluestem and one commercial variety of Bluestem were used, 

 showed a decrease in protein content for the commercial variety 

 and for one of the pure strains as compared with the Minnesota 

 grown parents, but on the following year all three varieties 

 showed a higher percentage of protein in the Aroostook grown 

 progeny than in the check trials of the Minnesota grown pro- 

 geny. 



As to the baking quality of the Aroostook grown wheats 

 the baking tests reported by Woods and Merrill show that the 

 flour from Maine wheats produced as a rule loaves of smaller 

 volume than the Minnesota standard flour, though of good 

 quality. The writers noting the arbitrary nature of the north- 

 western standard, suggest that Maine develop the growing and 

 milling of wheat along its own lines, and express the belief that 

 "by careful breeding from wheat now being grown in Maine it 

 would be possible to develop a strain equal for Maine conditions 

 to some of the improved strains of other sections." 



"Chas. D. Woods and L. H. Merrill. Notes and Experiments upon 

 the Wheats and Flours of Aroostook County. Maine Agr. Expt. Sta. 

 Ann. Rept. 1903, pp. 145-180. (Bull. No. 97). 



