The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom by P. L. Simmonds

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No better illustration can be given of the uncertainty which attends
the inferences drawn from the ultimate composition, than the fact
heretofore stated in regard to hay, the nutritive value of which is
placed in the tables containing the results of these analyses, at a
figure nearly the same as that of ordinary wheat flour.[39] In the
paper on the "Composition of Wheat," by M. Peligot--(" Comptes
Rendus," February 5th, 1849)--to which I have already referred, the
author gives the results of the various analyses which he has made,
and details the process he adopted.

Aware of the complex and difficult nature of the examination as
conducted by him, he seems to doubt in regard to some of the results
given in his tables In the fourteen samples which he analysed, the
proportion of water ranges from 13.2 to 15.2, which is a rather
higher average than is yielded by our American samples, especially
those which have not been shipped across the Atlantic. Of the
nitrogenous matter, soluble and insoluble, the proportions range
from 9.90 per cent, to 21.50 per cent.; the former being from a
sample of very soft and white French wheat; the latter from a very
hard wheat with long grains, from Northern Africa, cultivated at
Verrieres. Another sample from Egypt yielded 20.60 per cent, of
these nitrogenous matters, both of which are very remarkable
proportions.

In describing the process for ascertaining the amount of insoluble
nitrogenous matters, this author adverts to their estimation either
by the quantity of nitrogen gas furnished, or of ammonia formed, the
last being preferred for substances, which, like wheat, contain only
a few hundredths of nitrogen. The results which he obtained by this
method were compared with those yielded by the direct extraction of
the gluten by softening the farina under a small stream of water.
"These results," says he, "differ but little from each other when we
operate upon wheat in good condition, although the gluten which we
thus obtain holds some starch and fatty matter, while the starch
which is carried away by the water contains also some gluten." The
loss and gain, as I have already explained, and as has been proved
by these and other comparisons, are nearly balanced, and the amount
of rough gluten will therefore afford a fair exhibit of that of the
insoluble nitrogenous matters in this grain.

The salts in the samples of wheat analysed by M. Peligot, were
either wanting or were in small proportion; while the amount of
fatty matter ranged from 1.00 to 1.80 and 1.90 per cent.

These results agree very well with those which I have obtained. But
it is probable that the proportion is liable to great variation,
inasmuch as it is inferred that the fatty matter originates from
starch through its exposure to the general deoxidising influence
which prevails in plants.[40] There are also many difficulties
attending the accurate determination of this matter, and which are
probably the cause of the higher proportion often given. It is
properly remarked by M. Peligot that the ether employed in this
process should be free from water, and that the flour ought also to
be very dry. By neglecting these precautions, we separate not only
the fatty matter, but also a certain amount of matters soluble in
the water, which is furnished as well by the wheat as by the ether.

It would not, I think, be difficult to point out some incorrect
views entertained by this chemist, and more especially those which
relate to the fatty matter. Some of his processes for the separation
of various substances, if not faulty, require so many conditions for
success as to render the results, at least in other hands,
exceedingly uncertain.

But the capital error which he has committed is that concerning the
bran, already adverted to, which he considers injurious to the
flour, chiefly in consequence of the large proportion of fatty
matter which it contains.

In regard to the soluble nitrogenous matter usually called albumen,
from its resemblance to the animal substance of the same name, I
have to remark that in my trials the proportion has been found to be
considerably less than that often given in tables of the composition
of wheat. In one sample it was found to be as low as 0.15 per cant.,
in another it did not rise above 0.20 per cent. The amount was
usually so inconsiderable, that I did not think it worth while to
retard the progress of the work by following out processes which
could add little to the utility of these investigations.

Although much time and labor have been expended upon the analyses of
the ash of plants, I have but slight confidence in the results
heretofore given. The difficulties which attend the obtaining the
ash in a proper condition, and the fact that the products of all the
organs and parts of the plants have been analysed together, must
necessarily impair the accuracy of the experiments, and render the
inferences drawn from them of uncertain value. Much, indeed I may
say almost everything, still remains to be done in this department
of agricultural chemistry.

_Weight of wheat as an index to its value_.--Much has been said in
regard to the relative weights of the bushel of wheat of different
varieties or under different modes of culture.

As ordinarily determined, this weight ranges from fifty-six to
sixty-five or sixty-six pounds, being in a few cases set down
somewhat higher. It is said also that the bushel of wheat weighs
less in some years than it does in others, and that the difference
often amounts to two, or three, or even four pounds. Though this may
seem of comparatively little consequence for a few bushels, yet, for
the aggegate of the wheat crop of the United States, or for a State,
or even a county, it makes a great difference. Thus, were we to
estimate the product of one year in the United States at one hundred
and ten million bushels, weighing fifty-six pounds to the bushel,
and another year at one hundred and eight million bushels, weighing
sixty-two pounds, the difference in favor of the latter, though the
least in quantity, would amount to five hundred and thirty-six
million pounds in weight, or more than one million and a quarter of
barrels of flour.--(Report of the American Commissioner of Patents
for 1847, p. 117.)

It may be remarked, however, that it is not after all so easy to
determine with accuracy the weight of a bushel of wheat, nor to
decide upon the circumstances which have an influence in increasing
the density of a grain of wheat. If the microscopical
representations of wheat are to be relied on, it is probable that
the increase in the density of wheat depends upon the increase in
the proportion of gluten. I have found in several cases that, the
proportion of water being the same, those samples of wheat which
contain the largest proportion of gluten exhibit the highest
specific gravity, or, in other words, will yield the greatest number
of pounds to the bushel. But the weight of wheat will be influenced
by the proportion of water which it contains; the drier the grain,
the greater is its density; a fact which may account for the
difference which has been observed in the weight of wheat in
different seasons. If this is the cause, the calculation above given
in reference to the United States is fallacious--but if the amount
of gluten is _actually_, instead of _relatively_, increased by
peculiarities in seasons, it is no doubt correct.

I have devised a series of experiments to test the accuracy of the
statements made upon this point, but have not yet had leisure to
complete them.

_General conditions from the analyses of wheat flour_.--The large
number of analyses which I have made, and the uniformity of the
processes pursued, enable me to draw some general conclusions which
it may be useful to present in a connected form.

1. In the samples from the more northern wheat-growing States, there
seems to be little difference in the proportion of nutritive matter
that can be set down to the influence of climate. Thus, the yield of
the wheat from Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, is scarcely inferior to
that from New York, Indiana, and Illinois, although the two latter
are somewhat farther south. Local causes, and more especially the
peculiarities of culture and manufacture, have more influence,
within these parallels of latitude, than the difference of mean
temperature.

2. The samples from New Jersey, Lower Pennsylvania, the southern
part of Ohio, Maryland (probably Delaware), Virginia, the Carolinas,
and Georgia,[41] contain less water and more nutritive matter than
those from the States previously enumerated. That the samples from
Missouri, which is included within nearly the same parallels of
latitude as Virginia, do not exhibit so high an average of nutritive
matter as those from the latter State, must be ascribed principally
to a want of care in the management of the crop, and perhaps also in
the manufacture of the flour. Virginia flour, for obvious reasons,
maintains a high reputation for shipment.

3. The difference in the nutritive value of the various samples of
wheat depends greatly upon the variety, and mode of culture,
independently of climate. The correctness of the former statement is
shown by the much larger proportions of gluten yielded by many of
the samples of _hard_ wheat from abroad, the Oregon wheat in
Virginia, and a variety of Illinois wheat, &c. And in regard to the
effect of particular modes of culture, the various analyses of
Boussingault may be referred to, and that in my table of a sample
from Ulster county, New York.

4. The deterioration of many of the samples of wheat and wheat flour
arises in most cases from the presence of a too large per centage of
water. This is often the result of a want of proper care in the
transport, and is the principal cause of the losses which are
sustained by those who are engaged in this branch of business.

5. There seems to be little doubt that a considerable portion of the
wheat and wheat flour, as well as of other breadstuffs, shipped from
this country to England, is more or less injured before it reaches
that market. It is also shown that this is mostly to be ascribed to
the want of care above noticed, and to the fraudulent mixture of
good and bad kinds. The remedy in the former case is the drying of
the grain or flour before shipment, by some of the modes proposed,
and the protection of it afterwards as completely as possible from
the effect of moisture. The frauds which are occasionally practised
should be promptly exposed, and those who are engaged in them held
up to merited reproach.

6. It has been fully shown, by the results of many trials, that the
flour obtained by the second grinding of wheat, or the whole meal,
contains more gluten than the fine flour. Hence the general use of
the latter, and the entire rejection of the bran, is wasteful, and
ought in every way to be discouraged.

7. It cannot but be gratifying to us that the average nutritive
value of the wheat and wheat flour of the United States is shown by
these analyses to be fully equal to, if not greater than, that
afforded by the samples produced in any other part of the world. And
it will, in my opinion, be chiefly owing to a want of proper care
and of commercial honesty, if the great advantages which should
accrue to this country from the export of these articles are either
endangered or entirely lost.

TABLE EXHIBITING THE PER CENTAGE COMPOSITION OF VARIOUS SAMPLES OF
AMERICAN AND FOREIGN WHEAT FLOUR, BY LEWIS C. BECK, M.D. (1849).
----------------------------------+-----+-------+------+--------------
| |Gluten | | Glucos |
Kind of Wheat Flour, and from | | and | |dextrine,|
whence obtained |Water|albumen|Starch| &c. |Bran
----------------------------------+-----+-------+------+---------+----
Country Mills, New Jersey |12.75| 11.55 | 65.95| 8.10 | .65
West Jersey Wheat |12.80| 12.32 | 69.48| 5.90 | .50
White Wheat, New Jersey |11.55| 12.60 | 66.85| 8.50 | .50
Pennsylvania Wheat |11.90| 13.16 | 66.20| 7.25 | .75
ditto ditto |13.35| 12.73 | 66.90| 6.50 | .52
ditto ditto (2nd grinding) |13.35| 14.72 | 71.28 | .65
Pelham Wheat, Ulster Co., N.Y. |10.79| 13.17 | 67.74| 7.60 | .70
"Pure Genesee" Wheat |13.20| 11.05 | 75.20 | .55
Ohio Wheat, "fine" |12.85| 12.25 | 73.90 |1.00
Ohio Wheat, "superfine" |13.00| 9.10 | 77.80 | .10
Winter Wheat, Ohio |13.10| 11.56 | 66.84| 7.90 | .60
ditto ditto (2nd grinding) |13.05| 12.69 | 73.61 | .65
Michigan Wheat, "superfine" |13.25| 11.10 | 74.80 | .85
Michigan Wheat |12.25| 10.00 | 67.70| 8.75 | .75
ditto ditto (2nd grinding) |12.75| 11.20 | 66.00| 8.50 |1.05
Illinois Wheat |12.73| 14.61 | 65.20| 6.45 | .80
Magnolia Mill, St. Louis, Mo. |13.13| 10.27 | 69.75| 6.15 | .35
Mound Mill, St. Louis |13.48| 10.53 | 67.35| 8.15 | .20
Walsh's Mill, St. Louis |12.70| 10.63 | 69.40| 6.65 | .40
Washington Mill, St. Louis |12.88| 11.00 | 68.65| 7.27 | .20
Missouri Mill, St. Louis |13.00| 10.46 | 67.79| 8.35 | .40
O'Fallan's Mill, St. Louis |12.85| 11.25 | 68.24| 7.00 | .66
Phoenix Mill, St. Louis |13.22| 10.10 | 68.70| 7.30 | .15
Nonantum Mill, St. Louis |12.10| 11.02 | 68.60| 7.93 | .35
Franklin Mill, St. Louis |12.25| 10.29 | 69.85| 7.26 | .35
Eagle Mill, St. Louis |11.00| 10.15 | 69.50| 8.65 | .20
Winter Wheat, Missouri |14.00| 9.30 | 70.05| 6.30 | .35
Wisconsin Wheat |12.80| 13.20 | 68.90| 6.50 | .70
ditto ditto (2nd grinding) |12.80| 13.46 | 72.54 |1.20
Maryland Wheat |13.00| 12.30 | 66.65| 7.10 | .65
Richmond City Mill |11.70| 13.00 | 67.50| 6.90 | .50
Haxall and Co., Richmond, Va. |11.40| 12.80 | 68.50| 6.60 | .35
Virginia Wheat, "superfine" |12.05| 12.95 | 74.50 | .50
Haxall and Co., "best brand, '49" |11.40| 13.25 | 68.20| 6.25 | .60
Haxall and Co., "2nd brand, '49" |11.00| 13.20 | 75.60 | .20
Richmond City Mill, '49 |11.90| 10.50 | 70.00| 7.10 | .50
Oregon White Wheat, Va. |12.80| 14.80 | 71.30 |1.10
ditto ditto (2nd grinding) |13.85| 14.50 | 65.15| 5.90 | .60
Gallego Mill, Richmond, Va. |11.50| 13.50 | 68.35| 6.00 | .65
Ship Brandywine, Liverpool |13.38| 10.62 | 67.60| 7.75 | .65
Ship Fanchon, Liverpool |13.83| 11.38 | 67.45| 6.34 |1.00
Ship New World, Liverpool |13.65| 11.60 | 65.80| 7.70 | .65
Ship Juniata, Liverpool |12.50| 14.14 | 64.20| 8.36 | .80
Ship Stephen Lurman, Liverpool |11.65| 13.18 | 64.50| 9.55 | .68
Ship Leila, Liverpool |13.22| 13.18 | 64.65| 8.00 | .95
Ship Oxenbridge, Liverpool |13.90| 10.13 | 68.42| 7.30 | .25
| |& bran | | |
Ship Italy, Liverpool |12.94| 10.60 | 68.56| 7.90 |
Ship West Point, Liverpool |14.30| 12.30 | 63.00| 9.45 | .95
Ship W.H. Harbeck, Liverpool |13.53| 10.18 | 66.95| 8.80 | .30
Ship Princeton, Liverpool |13.40| 11.52 | 65.60| 7.90 | .85
Ship Columbus, Liverpool |13.50| 10.45 | 66.45| 8.50 |1.03
Ship Russell Glover, Liverpool |13.45| 10.47 | 66.20| 8.83 |1.05
Ship South Carolina, Liverpool |13.80| 9.00 | 70.80| 5.95 | .38
ditto ditto (2nd grinding) |13.30| 9.45 | 76.90 | .35
Ship Cambridge, Liverpool |14.50| 8.52 | 70.60| 5.40 | .40
ditto ditto (2nd grinding) |14.10| 9.10 | 70.55| 5.45 | .20
Ship Columbus, Liverpool |14.85| 8.47 | 76.48 | .20
ditto ditto (2nd grinding) |14.15| 9.00 | 76.60 | .25
Ship Ashburton, Liverpool |13.55| 11.68 | 69.22| 5.30 | .25
Wheat grown in Canada West |12.80| 7.23 | 74.12| 5.10 | .75
ditto ditto (2nd grinding) |12.60| 8.45 | 78.55 | .40
Chilian Wheat |12.44| 9.45 | 67.80| 8.37 |1.30
Chilian Wheat |12.85| 8.65 | 71.60| 6.10 | .60
| |& bran | | |
Valparaiso Wheat |12.50| 14.55 | | |
French Wheat |13.20| 9.85 | 69.00| 7.65 | .30
Spanish Wheat |13.50| 10.30 | 68.90| 7.00 | .30
Canivano Wheat |11.33| 16.35 | 63.10| 6.50 |2.30
Canivano Wheat |11.15| 15.40 | 67.25| 5.70 | .60
ditto ditto (2nd grinding) |12.60| 18.70 | 67.00 |1.70
Hard wheat, grown near Malaga |10.87| 12.15 | 64.38| 12.60 |
| | | |& lactic acid
ditto ditto (2nd grinding) |10.00| 14.50 | 60.20| 15.30 |
----------------------------------+-----+-------+------+---------+----

There is no crop, the skilful and successful cultivation of which on
the same soil, from generation to generation, requires more art than
is demanded to produce good wheat. To grow this grain on fresh land,
adapted to the peculiar habits and wants of the plant is an easy
task. But such fields, except in rare instances, fail sooner or
later to produce sound and healthy plants, which are little liable
to attacks from the malady called "rust," or which give lengthened
ears or "heads," well filled with plump seeds.

Having long resided in the best wheat-growing district in the Union,
the writer has devoted years of study and observation to all the
influences of soil, climate, and constitutional peculiarities, which
affect this bread-bearing plant. It is far more liable to smut,
rust, and shrink in some soils than in others. This is true in
western New York, and every other section where wheat has long been
cultivated. As the alkalies and other fertilizing elements become
exhausted in the virgin soils of America, its crops of wheat not
only become smaller on an average, but the plants fail in
constitutional vigor, and are more liable to diseases and attacks
from parasites and destructive insects. Defects in soil and improper
nutrition lead to these disastrous results. Soils are defective in
the following particulars:

1. They lack soluble silica, or flint in an available form, with
which to produce a hard glassy stem that will be little subject to
"rust." Soluble flint is never very abundant in cultivated soils;
and after they have been tilled some years, the supply is deficient
in quantity. It is not very difficult to learn with considerable
accuracy the amount of silica which rain-water as it falls on the
earth will dissolve out of 1,000 grains of soil in the course of
eight or ten days. Hot water will dissolve more than cold; and water
charged with carbonic acid more than pure water which has been
boiled. The experiments of Prof. Rogers of the University of
Virginia, as published in Silliman's Journal, have a direct bearing
on this subject. The researches of Prof. Emmons of Albany, in his
elaborate and valuable work on "Agriculture," as a part of the
Natural History of New York, show that 10,000 parts of soil yield
only from one to three parts of soluble silica. The analyses of Dr
Jackson, as published in his Geological Survey of New Hampshire,
give similar results. Earth taken from an old and badly exhausted
field in Georgia, gave the writer only one part of soluble flint in
100,000.

What elements of crops rain water, at summer heat, will dissolve out
of ten or twenty pounds of soil, in the course of three months, is a
point in agricultural science which should be made the subject of
numerous and rigid experiments. In this way, the capabilities of
different soils and their adaptation to different crops may be
tested, in connection with practical experiments in field culture,
on the same kind of earth.

Few wheat-growers are aware how much dissolved flint an acre of good
wheat demands to prevent its having coarse, soft, and spongy stems,
which are anything but a healthy organization of the plant. In the
Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, vol. 7, there
is an extended "Report on the Analysis of the Ashes of Plants, by
Thomas Way, Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Agricultural
College, Cirencester," which gives the result of sixty-two analyses
of the ash of wheat, from as many samples of that grain, mostly
grown on different soils and under different circumstances.

In this report are given the quantity of wheat per acre, the weight
of straw cut close to the ground to the acre, and also that of the
chaff. These researches show, that from ninety-three to one hundred
and fifty pounds of soluble flint are required to form an acre of
wheat; and I will add from my own investigations, that three-fourths
of this silica is demanded by nature during the last sixty days
preceding the maturing of the crop. This is the period in which the
stem acquires its solidity and strength, and most of its
incombustible earthy matter. The quantity of this varies from three
to fifteen per cent. of the weight of the straw. Prof. Johnston and
Sir Humphry Davy give instances in which more than fifteen per cent.
of ash was found; and Prof. Way gives cases where less than three
per cent. were obtained. The mean of forty samples was four and a
half per cent. Dr. Sprengel gives three and a half as the mean of
his analyses. M. Boussingault found an average of seven per cent. As
flint is truly the _bone_ of all the grass family, imparting to them
strength, as in cane, timothy, corn, oats, rye, rice, millet, and
the proportion of this mineral varies as much in wheat-straw, as
bone does in very lean and very fat hogs or cattle.

A young growing animal, whether a child or a colt, that is kept on
food which lacks _bone-earth_, (phosphate of lime,) will have soft
cartilaginous bones. Nature cannot substitute _iron_ or any other
mineral in the animal system, out of which to form hard strong
bones; nor can any other mineral in the soil perform the peculiar
function assigned to silica in the vital economy of cereal plants.
To protect the living germs in the seeds of wheat, corn, oats, rye,
barley, &c, the cuticle or bran of these seeds contains considerable
flint. The same is true of chaff.

The question naturally arises,--How is the farmer to increase the
quantity of soluble silica or flint in his soil? This is a question
of the highest practical importance. There are three principal ways
in which the object named may be attained. First, by keeping fewer
acres under the plough. Land in pasture, if well managed, will gain
its fertility, and in the process accumulate soluble silica in the
surface soil. In this way more wheat and surer crops may be made by
cultivating a field in wheat two years than four or six. If the
field in the mean time be devoted to wool-growing, butter or
cheese-making, or to stock-raising, particular care must be taken to
make great crops of grass or clover to grow on the land, and have
all the manure, both solid and liquid, applied to its surface.

There are many counties in England that yield an average of
thirty-two bushels of wheat per acre for ten crops in succession.
There are but few of the old counties in the United States which
average the half of that quantity: and yet America has greater
agricultural capabilities than that of Great Britain.

Another way to increase soluble silica in the soil, is to grow such
crops, in rotation with wheat culture, as will best prevent the loss
of dissolved flint, at any time by leaching and washing, through the
agency of rain water. This remark is intended to apply more
particularly to those large districts devoted to cotton and tobacco
culture, plants that take up no considerable amount of silica, and
which by the constant stirring of the earth, and the clean tillage
which they demand, favor the leaching of the soil. To keep too much
of a plantation of these crops, is to lessen its capabilities for
producing good crops of corn, wheat, and barley, at a small expense.
Corn plants, well managed, will extract more pounds of silica in
three or six months from the soil, than any other. As not an ounce
of this mineral is needed in the animal economy of man or beast, it
can all be composted in cornstalks, blades, and cobs, or in the dung
and urine derived from corn, and be finally reorganized in the stems
of wheat plants. Corn culture and wheat culture, if skilfully and
scientifically conducted, go admirably together. Of the two, more
bread, more meat, and more _money_ can be made from the corn than
from the wheat plant in this country. But so soon as what is called
"high farming" in England, shall be popular in the United States,
the crops both of wheat and corn grown here will demonstrate how
little we appreciate the vast superiority of our climate for the
economical feeding and clothing of the human family, over that of
our "mother country." In several counties in England, it takes from
twelve to fourteen months to make a crop of wheat, after the seed is
put into the ground. At or near the first of December, 1847, Mr.
M.B. Moore, of Augusta, Ga., sowed a bushel of seed wheat on an acre
and a half of ground, which gave him over thirty bushels by the
middle of May following. This ground was then ploughed, and a fine
crop of hay made and cut in July. After this, a good crop of peas
was raised, and harvested in October, before it was time to seed
with wheat again, as was done. While the mean temperature of England
is so low, that corn plants will not ripen, in Georgia one can grow
a crop of wheat in the winter, and nearly two crops of corn in
succession in the summer and autumn, before it is time to sow wheat
again. No writer, to my knowledge, has done full justice to the vast
agricultural resources of the southern portion of the American
confederacy. But there is much of its soil which is not rich in the
elements of bread. Nothing but the careful study of these elements,
and of the natural laws by which they are governed, can remedy
defects in wheat culture anywhere, but especially on very poor land.