BREAD 177 



is being done in these new countries, the most important 

 scientific progress already made concerns the transit of the 

 produce to the markets of the world, the development of 

 railways and ships, the development of processes enabling 

 the miller to clean the produce of slovenly farming, and the 

 joint efforts of miller, baker, and yeast manufacturer in the 

 production from the many wheats supplied to us, differing 

 greatly between themselves and from those which were avail- 

 able thirty years ago, of good bread at the extraordinarily but 

 beneficently low prices now current. But though the most 

 strikingly important scientific developments in connection with 

 our bread supply concern mechanics, and lie in what may be 

 described as the outer circle of its relationship, much important 

 work has been done in the inner circle, and I want in this 

 article to deal with the developments which are closely con- 

 nected with bread itself. 



Wheat and rye are the only cereals used for bread-making. 

 The quantity of rye produced in Europe annually is approxi- 

 mately equal to that of wheat, and it is a fact worth mentioning 

 that the growing of rye is confined almost exclusively to Europe. 

 Indeed, the only countries in which a large rye crop is raised 

 annually are Austria-Hungary, where it equals about two-thirds 

 of the wheat crop, Russia, where twice as much rye is raised 

 as wheat, and Germany, where the proportions are approxi- 

 mately twenty-five of rye to ten of wheat. Analyses stated in 

 generic terms, such as starch, ash, and albuminoids, do not 

 disclose the reason why barley, oats, and maize are quite 

 unsuitable for bread-making, and why rye is relatively unsuit- 

 able in British estimation for it. The brewer or distiller 

 knows quite well that any of these cereals can be fermented : 

 their percentages of natural sugar indicate that clearly enough, 

 and bread-making, as ordinarily practised, depends upon the 

 production of gas by fermentation. If therefore the power of 

 yielding gas by fermentation were the only index of bread- 

 making capacity, any of these cereals would be suitable, but 

 the fact that they are not so discloses at the outset a characteristic 

 which is as important as, probably more important than, the 

 power of yielding gas, and that is the power of retaining it within 

 the dough when by fermentation it has been produced, so that 

 the dough can be aerated and made when baked into the 

 appetising and digestible breads of commerce. Doughs made 

 from the flours of barley, oats, and maize do not possess the 



