Wheat

(hwēt.) [From A. S. hwæti. ] (Agric.) Aplant of the gen. Triticum (q. v.), and the seed of the plant which furnishes a white flour for bread, and is the grain most generally used by the human race, except in those countries where rice forms the principal article of food. The varieties of W. are numerous, though the difference between each kind is not very remarkable. The culture of W., from time immemorial, and in different soils and climates, has produced these varieties; the chief and most permanent of which are the red and white grained, and the spring W., which is generally red. W. yields a greater proportion of flour than any other grain, and is also more nutritive. Gluten is so e ential an ingredient in bread, that fermentation cannot go on without it; hence the inferiority of W. in wet seasons, and when it is blighted or ill-ripened, this element being then deficient in quantity; and hence also the advantage of having a stock of old grain. In 1871, the crop of W. in the U. States amounted to 230,722,400 bhs., value $290,411,820. [s. 958]