“CUT EARLY.”

Temuka Leader, Issue 2007, 13 February 1890, Page 1

“CUT EARLY.”

“I always cut en the green side,” said a farmer once to the writer. He had heard others frequently make a similar remark, and to put it shortly those farmers’motto was “ Out early New, what is “early?” One man fancies he is an early riser when he tumbles out of bed at seven and breakfasts at eight. Another does not think five o’clock an early hour to be about the house. So do farmers differ about the exact time to cut their wheat. Yet the wheat itself, if studied a little, will tell when it should be cut to yield the best flour-producing grain. When the wheat corn is formed it is only a little bag of water with a little saccharine matter in solution. Cut the wheat at this stage and the water will evaporate, leaving a parched and shrunken grain oi no use whatever. Let the wheat grow and the au»ar in the water will be added to, and starch will begin to form. The presence of the starch is denoted by the milky appearance of the moist “ inwards ” of the grain, which is then said to be “in the milk. Then follows the gluten, and as growth proceeds the gluten (the most nutritive part of the wheat), increases as well as the starch, and then the moisture and the sugar sensibly diminish until the milky substance entirely disappears, leaving in its stead a soft kernel, like dough. When the grain has reached this stage it cannot be harvested too soon, it good flour is wanted, for after this stage the gluten diminishes, and its place is taken by earthy matter that also takes the place of the moisture-producing a hard kernel. When the kernel can be crushed between the thumb and the finger, and all the milk has gone the grain is ready for harvest, and wheat so harvested will never disappoint the miller either in quality as a breadstuff or in colour,—Exchange.