Graining

“ It is true that the operator has no time to take a nap and hardly to bat his eyes, and that no doubt is the reason why so few grainers attempt quartered oak in distemper. The colors do dry very quickly, so the graining must be done without hesitation or waste of time. ”

“ The ground will vary from a very light buff to a darker shade of the same. As said before the graining consists of mottlings which are not very prominent, therefore the graining color, which is made up from raw sienna and burnt umber in distemper reduced to less intensity by whiting, should be put on thinly with a sponge and blended so as to show no feathering. ”

“ Some parts will require a much lighter ground than others, and good grainers take advantage of that knowledge and prepare the grounds in various shades in order to produce the effects desired. Some try to obtain these by overgraining, but while that improves the graining it will not produce the realistic effects possible by the varied colored grounds. ”

“ For the graining of many kinds of woods the devices which are shown below will finish the work completely, and in the graining of others will partially do the work, which may afterward be improved by hand work in the finishing. ”

“ The wood exhibits a variety of grain second only to oak, and I think that, after oak, it is the most difficult wood to imitate, as to do it justice requires the free treatment which can be given only by a trained hand and a correct eye. The average veins are free and graceful without being set or constrained, and the grains are constantly interlocking and branching off from the main hearts. ”

“ Stippling for graining in mahogany, 36. for Hungarian ash, 19. in distemper for black walnut, 31. Straining colors before thinning, 7. Stubby brush should not be used, 11. Substitutes for thumb nail in graining, 12. T. The angular cutter, 50, 53. check roller, 53. fitch or sable piped overgrainer, 51, 53. graining color, 9. mason pad, 55. patent graining machines, 54. serrated mottler or marbler, 51, 53. stubborn bristle, 51, 53. waved mottler, 50, 53. Thick coats should be avoided, 8. Thinning graining color, 11. Tools for putting bird's eyes in maple, 24. for use in graining cherry, 29. ”

“ I. Imitation of carved work, mouldings, etc., 58. M. Mahogany, 35. ground work for, 8. Maple bird's eye, 22. ground colors for, 7. Marbler or mottler, the serrated, 50, 53. Mason pad, 55. Matching stained oak, 18. Mitres and joints in graining, 14. Mixing color, 11. graining color, 9. [Pg vi] ground colors, 7. Modern panels and styles of doors, 58. Mottler, the waved, 50, 53. Mottlers or cutters, 50, 53. camel's hair, 50, 53. O. Oak, dark, 7. graining, 16. graining, all colors for, 7. graining in distemper, 16. groundwork for, 7. heart of, 14. light, 7. light in oil, to grain, 10. ”

“ In case the work is to be overgrained, care must be taken not to soften the edges too much, as it will present too sunken an appearance. The plain grains are made with the comb; and if this part of the work is properly done, the effect is better than if it were full of strong grains. ”

“ Again; he who raises wheat, corn, or other grains, has an equal inducement to look to it that his manures are abundantly impregnated with these essential elements. Phosphates, so available to the raiser of stock, are equally so to the producer of grain; because the size, richness, and nutritious qualities of the grain depend largely on the presence of these in the soil. A farmer, therefore, has a vital interest in this matter, and should obtain what best suits his purpose. ”

“ XLVIII. A corn plant consists of a culm bearing at its head a spike, which, when it is not mutilated, has, as in barley and wheat, three parts, namely: the grain, the glume and the beard, not to speak of the sheath which contains the spike while it is being formed. The grain is that solid interior part of the spike, the glume is its hull and the beard those long thin needles which grow out of the glume. Thus as the glume is the pontifical robe of the grain, the beard is its apex. ”

“ A single grain of true wheat may be the fruitful parent of grand harvests to come—of a handful of grain at first, each corn of which, fructifying in turn, will yield more and more until, as the years pass on, whole fields of waving gold will mark their increase.
Look carefully, dear ones, for the little grains of true corn in your natures. The little grain of love to God will grow if you let your hearts dwell on the thought of His great love for you. ”

“ Yet father raised large crops of corn, potatoes, oats and wheat. Wheat grew very large but sometimes ran too much to straw; some seasons, rust would strike it and then the grain would shrink, but as that and gets older, and the more the clay is worked up with the soil, the better wheat it raises. In my opinion it will be as good wheat land as the oak openings or prairies of the West for all time to come. ”

“ The ploughing of the ground in the spring, and the breaking of it up with the harrow, to prepare it for receiving grain, such as barley, rye, and wheat, were operations which interested them very much, as well as the sowing of the wheat, and harrowing it so as to cover the seed. ”

“ Before we can ascertain these conditions, we must know more than we yet do of the quality of our own grain. Some, grown in the best way on the best soils, is sound and good: much more, it is to be feared, will turn out ill,—blighted, damp, shrunken,—needing a large admixture of hard old wheat, if it can be made into flour at all. ”

“ There is good grain in plenty, but it is sowed along with the chaff and the tares, and now for the last harvesting the grain has germinated only to dwindle and die, for the tares have sprung up and choked it and the red garnering is of tares alone. ”

“ It is fitting that a grain which is so peculiarly adapted to be the aid and support of a great civilization should grow upon a plant of such dignity and beauty as is the maize. The perfect proportions of the slender stalk to the long gracefully curving leaves; the plumed tassels swaying and bowing to every breeze and sending their pollen showers to the waiting skeins of silk hidden below; the ripened ear with its exact rows of shining yellow grains wrapped in silken husks; all these make the corn plant as delightful to the eye as it is intrinsically important to the welfare of nations. ”

“ The Reasons why a whole Field of Wheat doth not produce a Crop equal in proportion to a Yard or Perch cut, rubbed out, and weighed immediately upon the Spot, may be, because the Grain of the Field lying to sweat in the Mow, loses considerably of its Weight and Measure. ”

“ There is no grain more prolific than wheat, Nature having bestowed upon it this quality, as being the substance which she destined for the principal nutriment of man. A modius of36 wheat, if the soil is favourable, as at Byzacium,199 a champaign district of Africa, will yield as much as one hundred and fifty200 modii of grain. ”

“ But good corn bread, hommony, mush, and various other dishes cannot be made of flour ground too fine. For all ordinary purposes, the common mill employed for grinding wheat, answers equally well for grinding maize. When it is required to grind the corn coarse, it is necessary only to elevate the uppermost stone and increase its speed ”

“ I have heard people exclaiming at the beautiful effect of the breezes passing over a luxuriant field of growing wheat, giving the appearance of waves on a lake; but when the wheat is in bloom, it is doubtful if this is a reason for congratulation, as the blooms are rubbed off in the process, which may be the cause of thin-chested ears at harvest, when, instead of being set in full rows of four or five grains abreast, only two or three can be found, reducing the total number in an ear from a maximum of about seventy to fifty or less. ”

“ Not one must be lost and every inch of ground must be put to use. The grain along the margin, for a breadth of sixteen inches, had been gathered into handfuls and skillfully tied, each with an unpulled barley stem, without breaking the straw, thus permitting even the grains in that head to fill and be gathered with the rest, while the tying set all straws well aslant, out of the way, and permitted the last inch of naked ground to be fitted without injuring the grain. ”

“ When you are husking corn your mind is apt to be more on your tender hands than on your work, but still one has a chance to do a little thinking from time to time. Husking corn—in fact, all the work of this last harvest, such as digging potatoes, pulling roots, and caring for vegetables—brings one into a closer dealing with nature than the grain harvest earlier in the season. Wheat, oats, and barley are reaped by machinery and thrashed by machinery, so that your contact with them is never intimate. ”

“ The fruit is a grain and the Poaceæ, therefore, are the chief source of cereals. Wheat, rice, corn, oats, barley, millet, and rye, all come from grasses, and all, except corn, are natives of the Old World. They were grown for countless ages before the discovery of America, when Europeans first saw corn used by the Indians. As they are wind-pollinated, the flowers of grasses produce no honey nor colored petals, and the vast majority of them have no odor. Most of them reproduce, not only by seeds, but by rootstocks, and many of them grow so closely together that they form turf. ”

“ No where in the west have I seen better crops. The yellow golden wheat, the bearded and densely standing barley, the luxuriant oats, and stout corn, as they were spread out before the eye in vast fields rapidly succeeding each other, and gently waving in the summer breeze, presented a scene full of interest, and bore indisputable testimony in relation to the excellence and fertility of the soil. ”

“ Grain of all kinds, as wheat, barley, rye, &c., and their flour, may be preserved for an indefinite length of time, if they be kiln-dried, put up in vessels or chambers free from damp, and excluded from the air. Well dried grain is not liable to the depredations of insects. ”

“ Good Soil Conditions.—When the grasses and clovers desired for a sod are sown with small grain, there is competition between them and the grain crop for fertility, moisture, and light. The grain crop is the one that will produce the income the following summer, and naturally is given right of way. The amount of seed is used that experience teaches is best for a maximum yield of grain. Usually this gives a thicker stand of plants than is best for the tiny grass and clover plants that often are struggling for existence down under the taller grain. ”

“ All the manure which is made on the farm for one year is hauled in the spring on the field intended for open fallow, which is then ploughed, and, after one or two cross ploughings through the summer, is also sowed wheat in the fall. The field on which the rye is sown is that from which a crop of wheat has been taken the same year, and which had yielded three crops. Corn is planted on the field from which rye had been taken the year previous, the stubbles of which are ploughed down in the fall. ”

“ From thirty to eighty bushels of corn and forty of wheat are usually raised from an acre in all the prairies where the soil has been subdued by previous cultivation. Every other kind of grain as well as vegetables are produced in about the same proportion. ”

“ The corn in general use for horses, sheep, and cattle, in called gram; [23] the flavour resembles our field pea much more than grain. It is produced on creepers, with pods; and bears a pretty lilac blossom, not unlike peas, or rather vetches, but smaller; the grain, however, is as large as a pea, irregularly shaped, of a dark brown skin, and pale yellow within. There are several other kinds of grain in use amongst the Natives for the use of cattle; one called moat, [24] of an olive green colour. ”

“ All the 1 conditions of time and space being fulfilled, we can obtain from a single parent-grain as many ears as are ordinarily obtained from twenty grains, with this most important advantage, viz.: these ears being produced from plants which have attained (or nearly so) perfect development of their growth, contain more than double the common number of grains, and their contents may be largely increased by the continued annual selection of the most vigorous parent-grains. ”

“ In other words, the piece of ground which, when sown with wheat, will maintain one man, would support one and a half if sown with barley or oats, three with Indian corn or potatoes, and five with turnips—in so far as the nutritive power of these crops depends upon the starch and sugar they contain. ”

“ The return for sowing of all kinds of grain, notably wheat, corn, barley, is calculated, on an average, to be fifty to a hundred-fold, while the date palm flourishes with scarcely any cultivation at all. ”

“ If we could obtain a variety of wheat of good quality, which, instead of two tons of straw and one of wheat to the acre, produced a ton and a half of each, it might be profitably cultivated, and the differences in the chemical composition of grain and straw are not so very great as to make me despair of this being done some time or other. ”

“ Wheat Grain is the most valuable of seeds, as it contains, in admirably adjusted proportions, the bone, the fat, and the muscle-forming principles. In the form of bread, it has been, not inaptly, termed the "staff of life," for no other grain is so well adapted, per se, for the sustenance of man; and many millions of human beings subsist almost exclusively on it. The lower animals are in general fed upon the grain of oats, of barley, and of the leguminous plants, and the use of wheat is almost completely restricted to the human family. ”

“ Its grain, however, in its wild state, is so small, as to appear worthless to those who are acquainted with the grain of cultivated wheat. It is, nevertheless, still gathered in some districts, where ancient custom still prevails, and after being tied up in bunches and dried in the sun, it is set fire to, and the light chaff burns so rapidly, that the grains are quickly freed from it, and only browned by the process, and when thus slightly roasted, it is considered a very agreeable food. ”