WHEAT. the most valuable and, next to maize or Indian corn, the most produc tive of all the cereal grasses. The genus Triticum of which the species are popu larly known either as wheat or wheat grass, are distinguished by a spike with many-flowered spikelets without stalks, and seated one on each notch of the rachis, their sides directed to the rachis, which is zigzag, and two glumes, of which the lower is either awned or awnless; the outer palea of each floret having at the top a notch, in the center of which is the terminal point, some times prolonged into an awn, or in some species with many florets tapering into an awn without a notch. The native country of the cultivated wheat has gen erally been supposed to be the central part of Asia; but the eEgilops ovate, a grass of the regions near the Mediterra nean, and of western Asia, becomes transformed by cultivation into wheat and may be regarded as the original form. Common wheat (T. vvlgare, wsti rum, or sativum) grows to a height gen erally of three or four feet, and has ears or spikes generally three or four inches in length; the spike four-cornered, the spikelets about four-flowered. Be
sides being classified as bearded and beardless the varieties in cultivation are distinguished according to the color of the grain, as white and red wheats. Some having the ears covered with a short soft down are known as woolly wheats. Innumerable varieties exist. Many parts of the United States and British provinces and wide regions of South America are admirably adapted to its cultivation. The value of wheat depends mainly on the quantity of fine flour which it yields; the best wheat yielding 76 to 80 per cent., sometimes even 86 per cent., of fine flour. The greater part of the husk of wheat is separated from the flour by the miller, and is known as bran. That portion of the bran which is more finely divided than the rest receives the name of sharps or pollards.
The following table shows the acreage, production, and value of the wheat crop in the United States in the calendar year 1920: