Problem with the wheat

[kev67]

I met a friend who likes Hardy and who is a professor in agriculture. I asked him whether he liked Hardy because of all the descriptions of farming. He said the problem described with the wheat was the same problem he studied for his PhD.

Overall, he said the first few chapters up to the wife-selling episode were good, but that after that, it started to just go on and on.

[kiki1982]

haha, I like that, the same problem as his PhD .

Could you ask him what the problem was and what that miraculous solution was likely to be, produced by the Scottsman? I'd be interested to know.
I am pretty certain the problem was that the wheat started to grow in the sacks, so it could not be sold for flour, but I am not certain how you find a solution for this when it has already happened...

The fact the story it went on and on after the wife-selling chapter was also my problem.

Come to think of that, though, maybe that's because we attach too many negative emotions to that episode which makes it kind of a climax and not something that sets up the story.

Apparently, wife-selling was a 'common' replacement for divorce in the country as the latter was too expensive for poor people to do and it could only be done if the wife had been unfaithful. It just involved going to the market with you wife (upon mutual agreement) and then 'marketing' her virtues thus getting rid of her for a certain amount of money. And it was socially acceptable to 'buy' such a woman for your wife, mind, not for domestic services merely and to then have to care for her, as the Canadian man does.

To us that is profoundly demeaning, with our human rights, but maybe if we wouldn't attach so much feeling to it, the novel wouldn't sink like a soufflé... Who knows.

[kev67]

This is what my friend says:

the discription of the problem in ch V is 'Tis that growed out that ye could a'most call it malt'; later the problem is associated with wet harvest conditions and in countries that had cool wet conditions at harvest - the Scotsman said he was willing to give up the secret beause he was going to warmer countries where the problem woulldn't occur. All this points to the grain having sprouted in the ear before harvest; this releases an enzyme, alpha-amylase, which in baking breaks down starch to release too much sugar. The loaf becomes very sticky, can discolour and doesn't rise properly cf 'there's a list at bottom o' the loaf as thick as the sole of one's shoe'. Excessive alpha-amylase is still a problem for today's bread makers and millers, and its still associated with harvesting after/in a cool wet summer. There is no magic cure (yet!) - you can separate the poor grains to a certain extent (and farmers can try and avoid the problem by growing certain varieties, and by harvesting bread making wheat first0, but this is not what is described in MoC - indeed the 'improvement' is instantly visible - i.e. they didn't bake a loaf to see if it had worked - I suspect the cure in MoC is purely a literary device (unfortunately)

[kiki1982]

I suspected something like that. It seemed far too magical to be possible at all.

That's also cleared up then.

[kev67]

I am not sure if this is the correct sub-forum, as it relates to an incident in Tess. In this incident, Dairyman Crick receives a letter to say that the milk from his farm has a twang. All the dairymen and dairymaids have to search the pasture on their knees looking for whatever it was that was affecting the taste of the cow's milk, eventually finding some wild garlic. On reading this I thought it was quite interesting, but then I started to worry that this was another literary device invented by Hardy. I asked the professor again via Facebook, and I am fairly sure he said that garlic could affect the taste of milk if eaten by cattle. He was running around a running track at the time so I couldn't hear very well.