The Milling of Wheat in the United Kingdom. 29 



wheat cleaning, which are approved by everybody, but I shoukl 

 like to say that the great whiteness or brightness of the best 

 modern bread is conclnsive evidence that the wheat has been 

 properly cleaned, whereas the consumer of whole-meal or 

 " standard " bread has to accept by faith the direct or implied 

 statement that the wheat from which it has been produced has 

 been properly cleaned. The bread itself does not furnish 

 conclusive evidence that all the dirt has been removed in wheat 

 cleaning. 



I have dwelt upon the severe action of the millstone, but it 

 is desirable to consider in detail the results due to it. In mills 

 of even moderate size there used to be one man known as the 

 " stoneman," then the aristocrat of mill operatives, who had as 

 part of his duty to keep the grinding faces of the stones circum- 

 ferentially " dead true " and i-adially slightly hollowed towards 

 the centre. As one result of so much careful designing and 

 operating, the bran produced from mellow wheat was " broad," 

 or, in other words, consisted of good sized flakes. We are told 

 that theoretically wheat contains a very much greater percentage 

 of flour than millers have ever extracted in ordinary milling. 

 This was due to .the commercial necessity, felt relatively quite 

 as much in millstone days as iiow, of maintaining a good colour 

 of flour according to current standards. So in practice mill- 

 stones were not made to remove from the inner side of the l)ran 

 all the endosperm capable of juelding flour, and it is safe to say 

 that under ordinary conditions more " flour was left on the 

 bran " by millstones than is left there by rolls. But as regards 

 the outer side of the bran, the story is different. The out- 

 standing difference between millstone and roller-made bran is, 

 that the former had a polished appearance which the latter does 

 not possess, and this probably meant that the excess of bran 

 powder made by the millstones, and necessarily included in the 

 flour, ^ came from the outside, and was merely the outermost 

 layers of the bran, to which the })lirase I have used that it is 

 ''neither nice nor nourishing" can most certainly be applied. 

 There is one point in Dr. Hamill's Report on the dietetic values 

 of various flours and meals which is important, even though it 

 seems to have escaped general attention. On pp. 47 and 48 he 

 gives the analyses of a roller-made flour representing 70 per 

 cent, of the wheat used, and of a 74 per cent, millstone-made 



' Since writing this article, I have sent flour and bran made from the 

 same wheat by both millstones and rollers to Mr. A. D. Hall, of Eothanisted, 

 with a re<)uest that be or Miss Brenchley should examine the samples 

 microscopically with a view to ascertainins;- whether this statement of mine 

 is correi't. Mr. Hall has replied that " the bran powder contained in both 

 the stone-ground and the roller-mill floui' appeared to be identical ami con- 

 sisted in the main of fratiinents of the nuter coats of the grain, and not tlie 

 aleurone layer." 



