1058 Rural School Leaflet. 



YEAST AND BREAD-MAKING 



Flora Rose 



Bread-making is as truly "farming" as growing corn or other crops. 

 The seed planted is yeast, the field is flour and water, and the crop which 

 we hope to reap is a fine lot of healthy yeast plants. Many persons 

 do not know that yeast is a plant, for it is so very small that it cannot 

 be seen with the naked eye. Under the microscope it looks something 

 like the illustration (Fig. 88), just a little round or oblong, half 

 transparent, living thing, having neither roots, leaves nor stem, but 

 able nevertheless to feed and grow and form new yeast plants. If you 

 could look for some time through a microscope at some healthy growing 

 yeast plants you would see a very interesting process (Fig. 89). Tiny 

 round buds would appear on the sides of some of the plants and after 

 a while these would become as large as the parent and send out buds 

 of their own, until finally, if the conditions were right, there would be a 

 little colony of many plants. 



Although you cannot see these tiny living things without the aid of a 

 good microscope, you do not have to depend on that to know that 

 they are there and to learn many things about them. It is very easy 

 to plant a yeast garden and quickly to get a good crop if you supply 

 the right conditions, for healthy, vigorous yeast plants grow rapidly, 

 and you soon know that they are at work because of the changes which 

 take place in the field in which you have planted them. They pro- 

 duce a change known as fermentation wherever they feed, and you are 

 familiar with this in the rising bread dough and in spoiling fruit. 



If you are to be successful in raising good yeast, you must know how 

 to feed and care for it, for it is like any other crop and needs looking 



after. Food, air, moisture and warmth are all neces- 

 (^J C3 ^^^y ^°^ ^^^ growth of yeast, and if it is to thrive 



well it should be planted in a well weeded-garden. 

 Originally all yeast was wild, but that used by 



man today is very carefully cultivated by persons 



who make it a special business to grow these little 

 p ^g Yeast cell P^^^^^ ^^^ P^^ them up in a convenient form for sale. 



Wild yeasts are very abundant and flourish par- 

 ticularly on fruits, about fruit trees, vines and bushes, or wherever 

 there is any sweet solution to fCed on. The foods best liked 

 by yeast are those containing some form of sugar, as fruit juices, 

 molasses, and dilute sugar solutions, and it grows well in a mixture 

 of flour and water for the dough contains enough sugar to 



