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.