_Hard Wheat_, or that grown in hot climates and on fertile soil, has much
more nitrogen than that of colder countries. In hard wheat, in a hundred
parts, twenty-two will be of nitrogen, fifty-nine starch, ten dextrine,
&c, four cellulose, two and a half of fatty matter, and three of mineral,
thus giving many of the constituents found in animal food.
This wheat is taken as bread, white or brown, biscuits, crackers, various
preparations of the grain whether whole or crushed, and among the Italians
as _macaroni_, the most condensed form of cereal food. The best macaroni
is made from the red wheat grown along the Mediterranean Sea, a hot summer
and warm climate producing a grain, rich, as already mentioned, in
nitrogen, and with a smaller proportion of water than farther north. The
intense though short summer of our own far North-west seems to bring
somewhat the same result, but the outer husk is harder. This husk was for
years considered a necessity in all really nutritious bread; and a
generation of vegetarians taking their name from Dr. Graham, and known as
Grahamites, conceived the idea of living upon the wheaten flour in which
husk and kernel were ground together. Now, to stomachs and livers brought
to great grief by persistent pie and doughnuts and some other New-England
wickednesses, these husks did a certain office of stimulation, stirring up
jaded digestions, and really seeming to arrest or modify long-standing
dyspepsia.
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