"When wheat is quite opaque, indicating not the least translucency, it is in the best state for yielding the finest flour--such flour as confectioners use for pastry; and in this state it will be eagerly purchased by them at a large price. Wheat in this state contains the largest proportion of fecula or starch, and is therefore best suited to the starch-maker, as well as the confectioner. On the other hand, when wheat is translucent, hard, and flinty, it is better suited to the common baker than the confectioner and starch manufacturer, as affording what is called _strong_ flour, that rises boldly with yeast into a spongy dough. Bakers will, therefore, give more for good wheat in this state than in the opaque; but for bread of finest quality the flour should be fine as well as strong, and therefore a mixture of the two conditions of wheat is best suited for making the best quality of bread. Bakers, when they purchase their own wheat, are in the habit of mixing wheat which respectively possesses those qualities; and millers who are in the habit of supplying bakers with flour, mix different kinds of wheat, and grind them together for their use. Some sorts of wheat naturally possess _both_ these properties, and on that account are great favourites with bakers, though not so with confectioners; and, I presume, to this mixed property is to be ascribed the great and lasting popularity which Hunter's white wheat has so long enjoyed. We hear also of '_high mixed_' Danzig wheat, which has been so mixed for the purpose, and is in high repute amongst bakers. Generally speaking, the purest coloured white wheat indicates most opacity, and, of course, yields the finest flour; and red wheat is most flinty, and therefore yields the strongest flour: a translucent red wheat will yield stronger flour than a translucent white wheat, and yet a red wheat never realises so high a price in the market as white--partly because it contains a larger proportion of refuse in the grinding, but chiefly because it yields less fine flour, that is, starch." In regard to wheat, it has been supposed, that the qualities referred to in the above extract, as especially fitting certain varieties for the use of the confectioner, &c., were owing to the existence of a larger quantity of gluten in these kinds of grain. Chemical inquiry has, however, nearly dissipated that idea, and with it certain erroneous opinions, previously entertained, as to their superior nutritive value. Climate and physiological constitution induce differences in our vegetable productions, which chemical research may detect and explain, but may never be able to remove or entirely control.