Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester. Revised and partly rewritten].

  • Edwin Lankester
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester. Revised and partly rewritten]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not, subject to blights. According to the analysis of Sir Humphry Davy, the nutritive quality of this kind is not quite equal to that of the winter wheat, the proportions being 9:2^ per cent, in the latter and only 94 per cent, in the former, of the entire bulk of the grains. The gluten contained in two kinds varies in a greater degree, that of winter wheat being 24, while that of spring-sown com is only 19, so that the wdnter variety is most eligible for the purpose of the baker. T. hyhemum is the Lammas or winter wheat, and embraces by far the greater number of varieties which are cultivated as the food of man. The wheats known in Great Britain and on the Continent as Fox, Kentish, Talavera, and Bohemian, or velvet, red, white, red- eared, and bearded wheats are varieties of T. hybemtan. This species may be easily distinguished by its apj)ear- ance, being much more vigorous in the stem, more erect and thick in the ear, and, in comparison with the other, destitute of beard or awn, for which reason its bloom is more conspicuous. The same cause may be cited to account for the fact that its pollen is both more easily diffused and more liable to be destroyed. This plant is sown in autumn, stands through the winter, and ripens its seed in the following summer. Slight varieties of this species are exceedingly common in different localities, and are probably attributable to some ])eculiarities in the mode of culture ; and tlie common varieties of winter wheat are distinguished from each other according to the colour of the tunic enveloping the grain, and the dif- ference observable in their chaff. Tlie colours are usually divided into white and red, the latter of those in- cluding many different shades of brown. Bed wheat is commonly said to be more hardy titan white; it is there- fore tliought to bo better suited for cultivation in bleak and upland districts. The ])lant is, however, not so pro- ductive as the white, and the flour which it yiehls is seldom of so desirable a (juality. 'I'he cultivation of another description of wheat, called from the form of the oar the duek-bill or conical wheat, T. Umjuhnn, has been attempted in England, but
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