On the Nitrate of Soda. 



121 



In this last case the expense comes so near to the increase of produce as 

 to show that the employment of this manure might not be advisable in 

 all states of the market. 



I must admit, however, that when some of the corn was ground the 

 yield in flour did not bear out the equality of price for which it had sold. 

 A bushel of the wheat which had received no nitre weighed 62j lbs., of 

 the other wheat only 60j lbs, : and this difference of weight told in the 

 produce of 4 bushels of each which were sent to the mill, as appears by 

 the following account : — 



Weight. Flour. Pollard. Bran. Waste, 

 lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. 



4 Bushels of wheat nitred . 241 176 17 40 8 

 4 Ditto not nitred ... 251 197 13 33 8 



The nitred wheat yielded less than its proportion of flour, not only 

 according to measure, as might have been expected, but even ac- 

 cording to weight ; for the 241 lbs. of wheat should have given 

 189 lbs. of flour, but they gave only 176 lbs., a further serious deficiency 

 of 7 per cent., so that the bushel of wheat not nitred gave 49j lbs. of 

 flour; that of nitred wheat 44 lbs. only; nearly 10 per cent, less of flour 

 according to measure. One miller who ground some of each wheat 

 stated to me that the condition of the two parcels was very different — 

 one appearing: to him so soft that he had no doubt it had been badly 

 harvested. They had grown, however, on neighbouring ridges; had 

 been cut and carried together. It was the nitred wheat, of course, which 

 was soft, and, as the miller stated, gave out its flour ill. The same 

 miller informed me that even in the golden-drop wheat he has found 

 this defect. He also stated, generally, that wheats which are grown 

 on farms where that crop recurs oftener than every four years, though 

 well-farmed superior soils, yield less flour than corn produced upon 

 poorer soils, on which the four-course rotation is observed. Hence it 

 appears that, whether we increase the produce of wheat by manure, by 

 improved seed, or by a more rapid succession, we have to contend 

 against this deduction, that the produce of flour does not increase in the 

 same proportion. Still, in the present case, the produce of flour per 

 acre turned out favourably : — ^ 



Wheat. Flour. 

 Bushels. lbs. 



Acre with nitre . . 30 at 44 lbs. 1320 

 Acre without nitre . 24 at 494 lbs. 1077 



Not only, however, did equal measures of the two wheats give unequal 

 weights, and equal weights unequal quantities of flour, but even the 

 same quantities of flour did not give precisely the same weight of bread. 

 In six successive bakings 9 lbs. of each flour were separately made into 

 bread. There was always a deficiency, more or less considerable, in the 

 bread produced by the nitred flour. I will trouble you with the last 

 trial only, which may be taken as an average one. Nine pounds of each 

 flour previously dried were made into dough according to the process of 

 Colonel Le Couteur :• — 



