GRAIN, the seeds of cereals cultivated for the production of meal, flour or other forms of cereal food, and for the feeding of livestock. The principal grains are wheat, oats, corn, barley, rye, rice, emmer, einkorn, spelt, millet, proso and sorghum. Buckwheat, though not a true grain, is usually included. All kinds of grain contain nutritious substances of a sim ilar character, although they vary, both in quantity and proportion, in various grains. These elements are: (1) Gluten, which affords the tissue-building nourishment for the animal body; (2) Fecula or starch, which provides the bodily heat and energy; (3) A sweet mucilage called dextrin, which is more nu tritious than starch, but is small in quantity, and renders the grain liable to the vinous and acetous fermentation; (4) A small proportion of fat, ranging from 1 per cent in barley to 6 per cent in oats; (5) A digestible, aromatic substance contained in the hulls, which consist of fibrous matter; (6) Moisture, which is pre dominant even in the driest grain, and increases the weight of the mass, although it lessens the specific gravity; it affords no nourishment, hastens the decomposition of all kinds of grain, if they are not kept very dry, and influences germination.
According to the 1910 census, grain consti tuted 48.6 per cent of the total value of all farm products in the United States. The grains are used principally Jor human food, although very large quantities are fed to poultry and cattle and other farm animals. The greater part of the oat crop goes to feed horses, and a large portion of the corn crop is used in fattening swine. It has been esti mated that grain products supply about 43 per cent of the nitrogenous part of human food, 9 per cent of the fat and 62 per cent of the starch. Besides being ground to make flours and meals, and a variety of cereal food prepa rations, quantities of grain are used in making beers and other malt liquors and distilled liquors. Other quantities are made into glu cose and vinegars, besides the multitudes of smaller quantities used in the arts.
The efforts to improve the food quality of the grain crop and to increase its acre-yields are unremitting. In Germany alone there were before the European War 46 breeders of rye, 84 breeders of wheat, 64 breeders of barley and 53 breeders of oats. In the United States and Canada every agricultural experiment sta tion is busy with the same problems, and with such success that the possible yield of grain has been raised within a few years, through the introduction of new varieties, by four bushels for every acre sown.
Grain is so large a part of the world's food that its collection and distribution is an im portant part of the world's business. In the United States and Canada it is usually handled in bulk, although in a few localities, notably on the Pacific coast, it is generally marketed in bags. From the grain farms it is hauled in the farmer's wagon to the nearest railway siding, where the grain is emptied into the chute of a '