The story of a grain of wheat

Front matter

Class JiDai

Rnolc ■ E' ^

Gopightft?

Preface

When the first edition of this book was published, the production of wheat in the United States was far in advance of that of any other nation. During the four years, 1897-1900, the average production in Russia amounted to 440 million bushels, while that of the United States during the same period was 675 million bushels. Since the beginning of the century, the production of wheat in Russia has continued to increase at the rapid rate described in the following chapters, and, while production in the United States also has increased largely, it has not been sufficient to retain for this country preeminence in wheat growing. The Russian production in 1913 reached the enormous total of 963 million bushels, while that of the United States in the same year was 763 million bushels. In the record year of 1914, the United States made a long stride towards overtaking her European rival, with the production of 891 million bushels, and it is reasonable to suppose that the disturbance to European agriculture caused by the general war in

4 PREFACE.

Europe will be sufficient to restore the United States to the leading place. If the struggle continues indefinitely, it is certain that America will have to be for many years the granary of Europe.

Contents

CHAPTER

I. Introductory . .

II. The Wheat Berry .

Index

PAGE 9

44 57 70

97 in

131 149 172

IQ3

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The Old Mill at Winchester, England . Frontispiece

A Field of Wheat 15

The Enemies of Wheat 20, 22

Model of Wheat Blossom 25

Model of Wheat Kernel 28

Wheat Market, Assouan, Egypt ..... 35

A Budapesth Elevator ....... 45

" Hunger-Bread " 62

Russian Peasant Ploughing 65

Loading Wheat, Argentina 74

Interior of an Argentina Mill 82

Thrashing Wheat, America .... . . 85

An American Primary Wheat Market .... 89

American Country Elevator ...... 93

An Oregon Elevator. Wheat handled in Sacks . . 101

Fire-proof Tile Grain Tanks, America .... 109

An American Elevator Town 115

A Steel Tank Elevator, America 119

Terminal Elevators, America 125

Feudal Mill, Bagatz, France. Erected 1316 . , . 132

An Assay of Bread 135

Quern. Isle of Man 138

Ancient Swedish Mill 140

Pompeian Mills . • . . . . . . 143

Dutch Wind-mill 144

Welsh Wind-mill 145

The Milling District of Minneapolis .... 147 Mill-stones grinding . . . . , • .150 An American Operative Miller . . „ . .152

The La Croix Purifier 157

Governor C. C. Washburn 162

Mr. C. A. Pillsbury 162

Mr. George H. Christian 163

Mr. William H. Dunwoody 163

Modern Roller Mill 165

Interior of a Modern Mill 167

Small American Mill 169

An American Country Mill 171

Harvesting Wheat, India 1 74

Chapter I

Introductory — Wheat's story — Early development — The black-bread era — The white-bread period — Further progress — The mission of wheat

The writer does not claim to be an authority on wheat ; neither by scientific knowledge nor by exhaustive study is he qualified to thus approach the subject. His point of view is that of one who, glancing rapidly over the marvellous history of this king of cereals, and noting the development of its growth and usage to conform to the requirements of modern civilization, is concerned more with the actual food problems of the present time and with questions touching the immediate future of the world's food supply than in the deeply alluring by-paths of chemical and botanical research or in the no less absorbing study of statistics, which sometimes leads even the wisest of the unwary into many strange and bottomless pitfalls. Such lines of research must be left to the specialist, and the literature concerning them is already extensive and growing greater with the increase of governmental inquiry and commercial progress.

For the purpose of this story, we may leave the scientist in his laboratory and the compiler of

IO THE STORY OF A GRAIN OF WHEAT

statistics in the maze of figures with which he has surrounded himself, and so, touching but lightly upon the more profound phases of the subject, attempt to briefly narrate the achievements of the past in wheat culture, and reserve for more extensive consideration questions of vital interest to the bread-eaters of to-day.

The story of a grain of wheat must be at the same time the story of a sack of flour and the story of a loaf of bread, in order to be at all comprehensive, and yet we may not, for lack of space, dwell upon the technical making of flour or the baking of bread. Each of these subjects would require a book in itself, and many books there are, printed in various tongues, which treat of them. Wheat is flour, flour is bread, and bread is food, the chief of all foods; man's constant mainstay and support from time immemorial, the primary object in his struggle for existence. Food for the stomach takes precedence in the long list of man's demands upon the world, and bread has been the cry of the needy since history's beginning.

The story of a grain of wheat tells the story of man's long-continued struggle for plenty ; the response of nature to her children asking for food; the emergence of mankind from savagery, when, regardless of anything save the pangs of hunger, the first miller plucked the berry from the stalk and, using his teeth for mill-stones, ground grist for a customer who would not be denied — his stomach.

Thence onward, growing more sophisticated and taught the need of forethought by dire experience, man planted and reaped his slender crop by the most primitive of implements; he ground his poor stock of wheat in a rude mortar with a

THE STORY OF A GRAIN OF WHEAT II

rugged pestle, putting by his stock of rudimentary flour against a time of need which was sure to come. Then came larger fields, planted in more generous measure and cultivated by clumsy yet still improving tools, with greater crops following more intelligent handling. Poor fields at best, telling a pathetic story, as we look back upon them from the civilization of to-day, yet dear to the pioneer farmer. Tilled sometimes by slaves driven to labour with blows; sweating and groaning at unending tasks. More happily, sometimes, by honest yeomen who first wrested their ground from nature and then defended their crops from the prowling beasts, from marauding bands of soldiers, from the thief by night and the oppressor by day. Gaining at last a comparatively poor crop, from which, after paying tithes and taxes in ample measure, something — barely enough to keep body and soul together — was finally garnered and safely housed for the season's use. Then, to the miller of the day, with his creaking wind-mill grinding out the grist on ill-dressed stones, with clumsy machinery, curiously inadequate; he, also, taking his share of the harvest for his labour. Thus came the era of black bread, coarse and dirty, fit only for strong teeth and the digestive apparatus of a rugged outdoor man.

The black-bread times, when the flour of all save the very rich was dark and filled with the impurities incident to the primitive method of its milling. The black-bread times, when the peasant was overridden and crushed to earth by his domineering and arrogant rulers, merciless in their treatment of the toiler. Those old wheat-fields eloquent of man's inhumanity to man; often beaten to the ground by the tramp of armed hosts just as the beautiful berry was reaching its maturity. The peasant farmer and his wife and children emerging from concealment to witness the ruin of their season's hopes, thankful to encounter starvation even, if they are left but a roof to cover them. Then the years of failure and blight, when both nature and man conspired against the wheat ; when drought and taxes scraped the fields bare, and the man who planted them, huddled hungry in his hut, thinking the murder and arson which later was acted to the ominous music of the $a ha. So, by natural ways, sowing the wind, reaping the whirlwind, to the oft-repeated and terrible cry of "Bread or blood!" mankind told the story of wheat in sanguinary and imperishable characters which future generations dare not disregard ; contemporaneously writing the story of human liberty ; the striving to hold and enjoy that which the labour of man's hands had brought from the soil.

Then, in this story of wheat, come brighter chapters with the dawn of a higher and better civilization, and the coming of less frequently interrupted peace. The beautiful wheat-fields of modern Britain extending all about comfortable homes, neat cottages, and noble mansions ; a land protected by just laws and governed wisely ; her people safely guarded against oppression from within and invasion from without. Rich fields tilled industriously and yielding abundantly; the work-ground of a happy people, who laboured to good effect. The grain taken to mills of some magnitude, cleaned and scoured on somewhat scientific principles; ground into flour on mill-stones; giving a beautiful golden product from which was made a bread as far superior to the black bread of the Continent, as was England's liberty to continental freedom. The miller, typified by him of the Dee, a man of influence and weight in his community, serene and prosperous. And all, from the farmer who planted to the miller who ground and the baker who baked, somewhat uplifted by having to do with King Wheat under favouring circumstances.

Still pleasanter and more inspiring are the later and grander chapters in the wonderful tale of a grain of wheat, and what it has done for man. The story crosses a wide ocean and is taken up by that consistent wheat-grower, the Anglo-Saxon, in a newer and wider and even freer land. The chapter on America, still open and continuing, tells of the march of the pioneer from east to west, always accompanied by a larger expanse of wheat-fields; of records made in wheat production only to be broken by other and still greater ones ; of a new nation reaching out to feed an older world ; of vast systems of railway and steamship transportation created in response to an increasing demand for bread abroad and a steadily growing production of wheat at home ; of crops unparalleled in the world's history for magnitude and quality ; of enormous fields cultivated by machinery of marvellous ingenuity; of gigantic mills, elaborated and scientific of process, grinding day and night with rank upon rank of steel rolls, a product of surpassing colour and quality, purified of all deleterious or unclean substances, being the purest and most nourishing food ever provided for the human race, making an idealbread, healthful, clean, and strength-producing, the food of the twentieth century, the climax of the white-bread era.

Moving still onward and never resting even as man's ambitions never sleep, the story of wheat goes forward. Yesterday a wilderness, to-day the abode of the pioneer, to-morrow a waving field of grain. Northward over the boundary of the United States into the Canadian northwest, spreading over lands but recently supposed to be valueless, marches on the King of Cereals, bringing civilization and law and order and justice with him. A thousand, fifteen hundred, two thousand miles to the north and west and still are found wheat-fields yielding phenomenal crops of superb quality. This is the latest achievement in the white-bread era, and men are wondering how many more thousands of acres are available for the culture of this plant before the word finis is written.

The climax of development thus far in the white-bread era is found in the spectacle afforded by one of the great flour manufacturing plants of the time, employing hundreds of skilled millers, driven by powerful engines with steam or water power or both, equipped with every mechanical device which can contribute to the quality of the product or the cheapness of operation, humming, throbbing, and thrilling with industrial life, operating steadily the year around and producing from five to ten thousand barrels of flour daily. Contrast this with the poor, fitful wind-mill of the black-bread age with its meagre equipment of primitive machinery and its miller or two, and some idea is gained of man's progress in the matter of flour-making.

Perhaps a more striking contrast even than this is the picture of a modern field of wheat just ready for harvest. Five thousand acres given over

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exclusively to wheat-raising. Stretching in every direction as far as the eye can see, one unbroken, waving mass of grain. The sight is glorious and inspiring, and when the mind recalls the little patch of doubtful grain, brought from the soil by arduous, unintermittent, unintelligent labour; dwarfed, insignificant, harried and threatened, and yet pathetically precious to the peasant wheat-grower of the black-bread period, the soul is lifted up, and the glorious story of a grain of wheat is told without words in a picture painted by the hand of a gracious Almighty, who, through the ages of oppression and fear, has brought forth his people to be witnesses of his greatness through the hand of man and the bounty of nature.

Thus the tale of wheat is ever the story of man's achievement with God's help, each chapter marking an upward step in human progress, an advance in knowledge, science, and civilization ; finally triumphing in a brotherhood of man wherein the east may be hungry but the west will not let her starve. Interdependent, the nations shall feed each other, and wheat will continue its beautiful mission of peace and good-will; and there will be no more hunger in all the world.

Chapter II

The wheat berry — Chemically and botanically considered — Its enemies, diseases, and pests

Botanically, wheat belongs to the grass family and is in fact a modified form of grass. Its pedigree shows it to have some rather disrepu-

THE STORY OF A GRAIN OF WHEAT I)

table near relatives ; certain weeds of doubtful reputation and some worthless plants, such as wild rye and wild barley ; indeed quack-grass is only five places removed from the worthy hero of this story. On the other hand, wheat is closely related to a number of valuable forage crops, such as its English cousin, rye-grass.

There are four main divisions in the family of wheat : common wheat, dwarf and hedgehog wheat, English and Egyptian wheat, and flint wheat, to w^hich the durum varieties belong. Each of these divisions, or sub-races, is again divided into a number of varieties which have been produced, probably, by crossing the sub-races. There is only one form of wheat known in a wild condition ; this is quite different from ordinary wheat and is called one-grain wheat.

The family of wheat is not only very noble, but it is also a very ancient one indeed. It is difficult to estimate with any degree of accuracy the length of time it has been used as food by man. Archaeologists contend that it was thus utilized in prehistoric days. The stone age probably knew it. It has been found in the ruins of the ancient lake-dwellers of west Switzerland, and discovered in the remains of Egyptian civilization. The learned Chinese, who seem to have a more or less valid claim for the original patent on almost everything in modern use, modestly state that wheat was grown in China some 2,700 years before the beginning of the Christian era. Undoubtedly, wheat has undergone many changes in form, properties, and characteristics during the time it has been cultivated by man, but the fact that it claims a record of more than 4,600 years of faithful service to mankind is the best evidence of its sterling character and value as food. It is only during recent years and in America that the claims of certain base pretenders to the honoured place occupied for the ages by the wheat family have been put forward, and as these claims are advanced by alleged " health-food " manufacturers for purposes of personal gain, and are not indorsed by reputable scientists, it is quite safe to class them with the innumerable past attempts of faddists and quacks to overcome long-established usage, and to predict that as long as the human race inhabits the earth, wheat will hold first place in the list of valuable foods.

Wheats from different sources vary in many respects; white, red, and amber in colour; wheats with large and wheats with small kernels, and wheat weighing from 55 to 65 pounds for a measured bushel. When converted into flour and made into bread even greater differences appear. Certain wheats make larger and whiter loaves than others, and there are differences of colour and taste which are noticeable. When the causes of all these variations are examined into, it is found that while all wheats have the same general chemical composition, they vary to some extent in the amounts of different ingredients which they contain. Even in a single variety, some of the kernels are larger than others and more mature, some may be shrunken, wrinkled, bleached, frosted, or perhaps germinated or u bin-burned." It may be afflicted with fungus diseases or show the ravages of insects. In fact, during its growth, wheat is subject to many ailments and adverse climatic conditions which have an unfavourable effect upon the bread made from it.

To a considerable extent, science has come to the assistance of the wheat-grower and has shown how some of the difficulties in the way of perfect wheat can be overcome, and how the spread of fungus diseases and insect pests can be checked. For example, smut is a fungus disease transmitted from the parent seed to its offspring. When smutty wheat is sown as seed the crop becomes infested with the disease. If, before sowing, the wheat is treated with certain chemicals, wheat medicine so to speak, the smut spores are destroyed and the spread of the disease is prevented. Again, the black rust of wheat is a parasitic disease in which the leaves become gradually covered with brownish black spots which spread from small infested centres. Under favourable climatic conditions, this epidemic may spread and involve the entire plant and even cause a loss of the crop. A study of this disease has shown that, in one of the stages of its development, the parasitic growth lives for a time upon another and entirely different plant, the barberry, and if this barberry be not at hand, the cycle of growth cannot be completed. Outbreaks of black or summer rust have been directly traced to the barberry, and it is well established that this fungus growth lives part of its life on this plant just as the trichina and tape-worm spend part of their existence in the body of some animal such as the pig. Having discovered the cause of this destructive enemy to the wheat family, science finds a cure in removing barberries from wheat-growing sections.

The family of wheat is not only subject to disease and sickness, but it has an army of enemies ready at all times to seize upon a favourable opportunity to attack and if possible overcome

The Enemies of Wheat.

Chinch-bugs in different stages of growth. A single egg is shown in a, and others on the roots and a lower leaf ; in b is shown a very young bug, and in r, d, and e the later stages, while f shows the adult and mature insect. The natural size of the bugs is shown on the stems of the plant.

it. Grasshoppers, chinch-bugs, army-worms, and frit and Hessian flies are its most destructive ravagers. Here again science has interposed to good effect between wheat and its insect enemies. The deadly grasshopper is kept within bounds, and outbreaks of this kind are far less numerous and ruinous than in former years. Large areas of wheat are saved by means of a machine termed in America the " hopperdozer." This rakes over the ground, collects the grasshoppers and introduces them to kerosene oil which destroys them. When the eggs of the grasshopper have been laid, the land is ploughed and the egg-case is inverted, consequently the infant insect is not able to make its way into the world. The ploughing of land infested with grasshoppers has proved to be the most effectual way of fighting this enemy.

Scientists have experimented with the introduction of fungus diseases among grasshoppers. Insects, like animals of higher order, are subject to disease. Some of these sicknesses are parasitic in form, and if the germ of the disease can be introduced and spread about in the fields, the healthy grasshoppers soon become diseased and die. The ravages of the chinch-bug have, under favourable circumstances, been held in check by this method of treatment. The spores or seeds of a fungus disease which attacks the chinch-bug can be grown upon other materials, such as beef broth or corn-meal, and a stock of these diseased germs can be kept on hand. In case of an attack of the insects, the ground being moist and conditions favourable, these germs can be introduced into the soil, and are capable of spreading and causing disease among the healthy, active chinch-bugs. This method of spreading disease among insects

The Enemies of Wheat.

Grasshoppers, three-fourths natural size, a, Single egg; c, egg masses, closed and opened ; g, male ; k, female. Lesser migratory locust : b, pupa ; e, male, d, female.

has been effectual at times, but, as in the case of all contagious diseases, the spread is dependent upon favourable conditions. Ravages of other insects such as the frit-fly are .combated by burning the stubble ; this destroys the eggs of the insect. In the prevention of fungus diseases and insect attacks, the same principles are employed as in the prevention and treatment of human diseases. The cause of disease is first ascertained, and its prevention or treatment is dependent upon some characteristic weakness of the parasitic body.

It will be observed that the wheat family, as behooves so ancient and conservative a house, repels the attacks of sickness by active and positive old-school medicines, and that the principles of Christian Science have not been applied to any extent in the elimination of wheat diseases. It is a fact, however, that during an outbreak of grasshoppers in Minnesota in 1877, the Governor of the State appointed April 26 as a day of fasting and prayer and urged the people " in the shadow of the locust plague, whose impending renewal threatens desolation of the land," to " humbly invoke for the efforts we make in our defence the guidance of that hand which alone is adequate to stay ' the pestilence thatwalketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noonday/ " The Governor's proclamation caused much comment and some adverse criticism. Clergymen read it from their pulpits, and in solemn tones exhorted the people to assemble together for prayer on the day appointed. The 26th of April arrived, shops and other places of business were closed, the church-bells announced the hour of service and, deeply impressed by the unusual character of the occasion^ to which the extraordinary quiet of the day contributed, the people, Protestant and Catholic alike, walked soberly to church and there prayed fervently to the Almighty for help and succour against the threatened devastation of their wheat crop, which, at that time, was of vital importance to the welfare of the struggling farmers, who had suffered severely from grasshoppers the previous year.

A strange thing followed, strange but true, as thousands of living witnesses can prove. April 27, the day following the day of prayer, the sun shone over the entire State bright and clear and with extraordinary heat. The warmth was like midsummer. It penetrated the moist earth and there found the larvae of millions upon millions of grasshoppers. Stimulated and quickened by the heat, the infant enemies of wheat came to the earth and crawled about the surface in countless myriads, enough to destroy not only the crop of Minnesota, but that of the entire northwest. The visitation of the year previous was nothing compared with the vast army of crawling locusts which now came forth from the earth. For a few days the unseasonable weather continued, then suddenly it grew colder and one night there was a severe frost, the earth was frozen and with it the hatched and unhatched grasshoppers* In a few days it thawed again, but the pests had gone, and the wheat crop was saved from its enemies. It is true that since 1877 there have been no grasshoppers worth worrying about in Minnesota.

Not only is the wheat family assailed by disease and hostile armies, but, should it escape these, it still has to struggle for existence because moisture and proper food materials in the soil are often lacking. The growth of the wheat-plant from seed to maturity is one constant series of chemical changes. The various food elements in the form of mineral matter, such as potash, phosphate,, lime and magnesia salts, together with the water and nitrogenous compounds, are taken from the soil, while the carbon is obtained entirely from the air. The leaf is the manufacturing plant or chemical laboratory where all of the various changes take place, and where the different compounds, including starch, gluten, and oil, are elaborated. The materials that are produced in the leaf are finally stored in the seed as nourishment for the future wheat-plant. Climatic conditions, the nature of the soil, and the character of the seed are the main factors which determine the properties and individuality of the wheat.

Wheat grown on fertile soils, in northern latitudes with a short but forcing

Season of growth, develops Model of Wheat Blossom.

more glutinous matter and

less starch than wheat grown on poorer soils and in latitudes where the period of growth is prolonged. The same general laws which influence the growth and development of animal bodies are also noticeable in the growth of wheat. For example, in all young and growing animals there is first developed a framework of bone and muscle if proper food is supplied. After the framework is developed the addition of more food causes the animal to undergo the fattening process. The animal will prematurely fatten if not properly fed. So with the wheat plant, the earlier stages of growth are devoted largely to the building up of the nitrogenous or glutinous compounds corresponding to the framework of the animal ; while the later stages of growth are given over principally to the formation of the starch, which corresponds to the fattening period of the animal. If the normal development of the wheat is in any way checked, the kernels may appear prematurely fattened and lack strength, or slightly shrunken and shriveled, because the fattening of the kernels has not taken place.

The chemical changes which take place in the leaves of the growing plant are the results of life processes, and, like ail similar changes, are not well understood. As soon as the seed passes its germinating stage, which it does rapidly when grown under normal conditions, the roots and leaves are produced and then the food from both soil and air is absorbed and elaborated into plant tissue. By the time the leaves are five inches high the first roots are about twenty inches in length, and develop rapidly in all directions. Some appear to be especially designed to give mechanical strength and support to the plant, while each individual rootlet is covered with a large number of root hairs which come in contact with the soil and absorb food. These root hairs are thick or thin in places according to the amount of plant food in the different layers of soil. The spike, which later bears the grain, is discernible even in the early stages of growth, and develops within the hollow cylindrical stem which is connected by joints and internodes. If conditions are favourable, the grain " stools/' and a number of stems or branches are developed. As the plant grows and larger leaves are produced, the earlier leaves become less active and give up their substance to the plant, the heads are unwrapped from their leafy covering and the grain passes through the various ripening stages to maturity. The blossoming stage is one of the most interesting periods in the development of the plant. The floret is complete in itself, having all the parts and organs of an ordinary flower, including ovule, stamens, pistils, filaments, anthers, and pollen.

Wheat is self-fertilizing, and at flowering time the anthers are pushed upward ; they break open and the pollen grains fall on the stigma. Nevertheless some scattering of the pollen occurs during fertilization, and a sufficient opening of the flowers takes place to allow occasional cross-fertilization. By means of removing the pollen from one variety of wheat to the ovules of another, cross-breeding is accomplished, which has resulted in the production of a number of new and promising varieties.

A mature wheat kernel is a single seed enclosed in tightly fitting walls. During growth the lateral portions of the seed fold inward and the seed elongates, forming a fold or groove upon its upper surface. The covering known as the bran scale consists of three parts: the outer skin or coarsest part of the bran, an inner double skin, and a thin, hard, transparent layer. Inside of the bran, another layer of cells, called the aleurone cells, is found. The flour cells, found within the bran, and the aleurone layers constitute nearly eighty-four per cent of the wheat kernel, of which about seventy-five per cent is recovered as flour, which is composed of starch, gluten, and other nutriments. The germ, or embryo plant, is found at the lower end of the kernel, and is surrounded by reserved food*materials. When the wheat is made into flour a mechanical separation of the different parts takes place, the germ and bran layers are removed, and the flour cells are granulated.