230 



STATISTICS or WHEAT CULTTJEE. 



bulk, as usually conducted, ai'e attended with great loss. This difficulty might 

 "be removed at a trifling expense by adopting the plan suggested in the preced- 

 ing report, and to which I would again respectfully call the attention of those 

 who are engaged in this branch of trade. 



I might here adduce a mass of testimony showing the importance of the 

 matters just referred to, but will only advert to the following statements, which 

 although made in allusion principally to maize, are equally applicable to our 

 other breadstuff's. Maize meal, if kept too long, is liable to become rancid, 

 and it is then more or less unfit for use. In the shipments made to the West 

 Indies, the meal is commonly kiln-dried, to obviate as much as possible this 

 tendency to rancidity." When ground very fine, maize meal suffers a change 

 by exposui'e to the air. It is oxygenated. It is upon the same principle that 

 the juice of an apple, after a little exposure to the air, is oxygenated, and 

 changes its character and taste. If the flour could be bolted in racuct, it would 

 not be changed." Intelligent writers speak of the necessity of preparing com 

 for exportation by kiln-drying as indispensable. Without that process, com is 

 Tery liable to become heated and musty, so as to be unfit for food for either man 

 or beast. The kiln-dried maize meal from the Brandywine Mills, i:c., made 

 from the yellow corn, has almost monopolized the West India trade. This 

 process is indispensable, if we export maize to Europe. James Candy says that 

 from fifty years experience he has learned the necessity of this process with 

 corn intended for exportation." " I have often found the corn from our coun- 

 try when it reached irs destination, ruined by heating on the voyage. It had 

 become musty and of little or no value. KiLn-di-ying is absolutely necessary 

 to preserve it for exportation. We must learn and practice the best mode of 

 kiln-drying it.*" 



The nutritious value of the " ivhole meaV^ of JF/ieat, as compared with tliat of 

 ihe fine flour. — The question whether what is called the whole meal of wheat, 

 or that which is obtained by the mixture of the bran, contains more nutritious 

 matter than the fine flour, is one of great importance. In my former report, I 

 adverted to the statement made in regard to it by Professor J. P. W. Johnston, 

 and which seemed to be almost conclusive in favor of the value of the whole 

 meal. During the past year, however (1849), M. Eng. Peligot, an eminent 

 French chemist, in an elaborate article " On the Composition of Wheat," to 

 which more particular reference will be made hereafter, combats the opinion 

 that the bran is an alimentary substance. He observes that the difficulty of 

 keeping the bran in flour intended for the manufacture of bread of good quality 

 appears to result much less from the presence of the cellulose (one of the con- 

 stituents of woody matter) contained in wheat than that of the fatty matter. 

 This is foimd in the bran in a quantity at least triple of that which remains m 

 the floui-, and the bolting separates it fi^om the ground wheat not less usefully 

 than the cellulose itself." f 



M. MilLon objects entirely to the views of M. Peligot on this point, and states 

 some facts which are especially worthy of consideration. He asserts that, 

 according to the views of the last named chemist, the separation at mDst of one 

 part of fatty matter sacrifices fifteen, twenty, and even twenty-five per cent, of 

 substances which are of the highest nutritive value. This abstracts from wheat, 

 for the whole amount raised in France, the enormous sum of about two 

 hundred millions of pounds annually. 



It seems that in France the question whether the bolting of flour is advan- 

 tageous has always been decided in the most arbitrary manner. An ordinance of 

 Louis XIV., issued in 1 608, prohibited, under a very heavy penalty, there- 

 grinding of the bran and its mixtui-e with the flour \ this, with the mode of 

 grinding then in use, caused a loss of more than foiiy per cent. — (Comptes 

 Eendus^ February 19th, 1849.) 



In large cities and elsewhere, there seems for some time to have been a grow- 

 ing prejudice against the use of brown bread; and it is said that now nearly all 

 the peasantry of France bolt their flour. The increase of this practice, accord- 



* Erom remarks of Col. Skinner, and others, at a meeting of the American Institute, 

 held in April 184i6. Transactions of American Institute, 1846, p. 509 et feq. 



t Comptes Kendus des Seances de L'Academie des Sciences, February 5tii, 18^3. 



