Wheat Production in New Zealand. 
CHapter I. 
THE CONSUMPTION OF WHEAT. 
1. Uses of Wheat. 
The wheat industry is so widely distributed, and 
its products are of such universal service, that it is 
necessary to consider briefly the important factors 
of marketing and consumption in the great wheat 
producing areas before discussing in greater detail the 
problems which the industry gives rise to in our own 
field of production. From the earliest time the product 
has been used as a human food. The traditional use 
of wheat for bread has not only blinded our vision to 
the variety of uses to which wheat may be adapted, 
but it has also deadened enterprise in the production 
of other foodstuffs. 
The main product of the industry is flour, the chief 
ingredient in many varieties of foodstuffs other than 
bread. These foodstuffs owe their growing popularity 
not so much to their superiority in sustaining life as 
to their greater palatability and general attractive- 
ness. The manufacture of crackers or biscuits, an 
important foodstuff from the wheat industry, is now 
a trade peculiar to itself, while macaroni, one of the 
latest products of the industry, in its numerous forms, 
is a palatable and nutritive food. It is relatively 
A 
