2. The only substance adapted for making loaf. bread is the flour of wheat, a grassy plant, distin-1 guished among botanists by the name of frit/cum., This plant is cultivated, perhaps, over a greater ex tent of the globe than any other, and, like man, it seems to adapt itself to almost every climate. We have seen excellent crops of it raised in north lati tude It is cultivated in the East Indies, consi derably within the limits of the torrid zone ; and, in the north of Indostan, it constitutes a chief article in the food of the inhabitants. The original habitat of this plant is unknown. We know, however, that it improves considerably in its quality as we advance south. The wheat of Essex and Kent brings a much higher price than the wheat raised in East-Lothian and Berwickshire. French wheat is superior to that of England. The Italians have the superiority over the French in their wheaten crops, and perhaps the best wheat of all is raised in Barbary and Egypt. Mr Bruce found wheat growing wild in Abyssinia, and, in his opinion, that kingdom is the native coun try of the plant. It would seem to be originally an African plant, since it thrives best in Barbary and Egypt and perhaps the mountains of Abyssinia, though within the torrid zone, may not differ much in point of climate from the more northern plains of Egypt. In India the plant seems to have deteriorated. It is always dwarfish, and the crop, we have been told, is less abundant than in more northern cli. mates.
3. The culture of the different varieties of wheat, as practised in this country, and the method of grind ing and fitting the flour for the baker, being foreign to the present subject, we cannot, with propriety, touch upon them. It may be sufficient to say, that originally, in England, the baker was his own manu facturer. He purchased his own wheat,'and got it ground as he wanted it. At that period, the miller separated the wheat into three portions ; namely, flour, pollard, and bran. The bran was the outside of the grain. It was not used as food at all, or only given to horses. The pollard was the portion of the grain next the husk ; it was coarser and darker co loured than the flour, which constituted the interior or central portion of the grain. This flour, at an average, amounted to three-fourths of the wheat ground. But, by insensible degrees, the manufac ture of bread became separated into two distinct em ployments, that of the mealman, who ground the wheat and sold the flour, and that of the baker, who converted it into bread. The mealman made differ ent kinds of flour, some extremely fine and white, while others were very coarse and unpalatable. This white flour, when made into bread, was so pleasing to the eye and the taste, that it gradually got into general use, and the people refused to purchase the bread made of the whole of the flour. At present, in the mills in the neighbourhood of London, wheat is divided into no fewer than seven distinct kinds of flour. The following are the average proportions of these obtained from a quarter of wheat : Thus we see that wheat almost doubles in bulk by being ground into flour.
constitutes the centre and finest part of the grain of wheat. This is partly sold to the biscuit-makers, and is employed in baking the finest kind of sea biscuit. It is partly ground again, and constitutes the finest and most valuable kind of flour.
4. The bakers in Great Britain, at present, are re stricted by act of Parliament to bake only three kinds of bread, namely, wheaten, standard wheaten, and household. The first must be marked with a W, the second with S W, and the third with H ; and the baker who neglects to mark them in this manner is liable to a penalty. The wheaten loaf is made of the finest flour, the standard wheaten of the whole flour mixed together, and the household of the coarser flour. The loaves baked are usually peck loaves, half peck, and quartern loaves ; the weights of which, provided they be weighed within forty From this it appears, that the average loss of the quarters loaf in weight by baking is 9a. ounce, or not quite so much as one-seventh of the whole. From the experiments of Tillet, and the other French commissioners who were appointed to examine the subject in 1783 ein consequence of an opinion prevail ing in Paris that the bakers did not give the full weight, while these tradesmen declared that they put the proper quantity of flour in the loaves), it appears that the French loaf loses a considerably greater weight in the oven. A loaf which, when put into the oven, weighed 4.625 lbs. when taken out of the oven, weighed at an average only 8.813 lbs. or 0.812 lb. less than at first. This amounts to somewhat more than one.sixtb, or very nearly to jiths of the whole. This greater loss is chiefly owing to the dif ference between the shape of the English and French loaf. The English has nearly a cubic form, while the French loaf is very long and slender. For it is obvious, that the loaf which presents the greatest surface must lose moat weight in the oven.
The French commissioners, however, found that this loss of weight was by no means uniform,, even with respect to those loaves which were in the oven at the same time, of the same shape, in the same place, and which were put in and taken out at the same in stant. The greatest difference in these circumstances amounted to 0.2889 or 7.5 parts in the hundred, which is about -th part of the whole. According to this rate, we may suppose that an English quartern loaf, when taken out of the oven, may vary in weight nth part, which amounts to rather more than 41 ounces. So that the law which subjects the baker to a penalty if his bread weighs one ounce less than it ought to do, seems too severe, and must have a tendency to injure the goodness of hie bread, by making the baker more solicitous about the weight than the quality of his loaf. To this we ascribe in part the badness of the London bread in general, compared with the bread in other places, particularly in Edinburgh, where it is remarkably good. But there are other causes. for this deterioration of the London bread, which we be lieve to be of recent date. These we shall notice hereafter.