German composition

Section 59 Wheat

Wheat is the most valuable⁠1 of all grains, because⁠2 from it, chiefly, we obtain the flour of which bread is made. In order to make⁠3 flour, the grains of wheat⁠4 are crushed⁠5 between stones in a mill. The crushed mass is then separated⁠6 into two parts,—bran⁠7 and flour. Bran is the outer husk of the grain, which is used (S. 4, N. 4) for⁠8 fattening cattle, etc.⁠9 It⁠10 does no harm, however, to mix the bran with the flour; the mixture is more nourishing than the pure flour. The bran makes the flour and the bread darker in colour; but this is no disadvantage, for brown bread is both⁠11 cheaper and more nourishing than white bread. Bread⁠12 is often artificially whitened by⁠13 the addition of alum and other injurious substances. Wheat is⁠14 chiefly grown in France, Germany, Austria, Southern Russia, (S. 46, N. 6) the British Isles, Australia, the United States, Canada, Egypt, and Northern Africa.—Nelson’s Readers.

Notes

1 wertvoll; ‘grain’, here Kornart, f.

2 Say ‘because it yields (liefern) us chiefly the flour for our bread’.

3 bereiten.

4 Form a compound noun of ‘wheat’ and ‘grains’ (Körner).

5 zermahlen.

6 sondern.

7 The prep. ‘in’ must be repeated before this and the following noun.

8 for — cattle, zur Viehfütterung.

9 u. s. w., i.e. und so weiter.

10 It — however, Übrigens schadet es nichts.

11 both... and, sowohl... als auch.

12 Say ‘Bread receives (erhalten) often an artificial whiteness through an addition’, etc.

13 When ‘by’ is equivalent to ‘through’, it must be rendered by durch.

14 Say ‘grows chiefly’, in order to make the construction more concise than it would be by using a p. p., which would have its place at the end of the whole clause, and would thus make the construction too lengthy.