184r On Malting. 



no maltsters who ventured to tnaintain, that watering on 

 the floors made maU better for the brewers ; but on the con- 

 trary I found brewers who were making their own malt 

 without watering it, and precisely similar to the Hertford- 

 shire malt. There were also a few other houses working in 

 the Hertfordshire way without watering, though the malt- 

 Bters contended for the practice, but alleged, that as they 

 could not water so early as they wished, and watering so 

 late as the tenth day, injured the malt, they had left it off 

 altogether. 



I found the malt-houses very large, roomy, and spacious, 

 beyond any I had seen before, and incomparably more so 

 than the houses in Hertfordshire; but notwithstanding their 

 superior size, they were kept much darker and closer from 

 the external air than the latter, and this circumstance I con- 

 sider as very injudicious, and as one of the causes operating 

 to produce their finnery or mouldy malt, several of the old 

 floors were far nnore decayed than any I met with in Hert- 

 fordshire. 



In the latter place the chief object in the manufacture of 

 malt is weight; in the west it is an increase of measure, 

 and this was said to be from one or two bushels in twenty. 



The prices of malt in Hertfordshire, were from four 

 pounds to guineas per quarter, in the west they were said to 

 be from seven'.y-four to seventy-eight shillings; it is there- 

 fore evident that the profits on their light inferior malts are 

 at least equal to those on the best made Hertfordshire malt, 

 notwithstanding the apparent difference in the respective 

 prices, and this without considering any advantage from 

 fraud or otherwise. It is admitted on all hands that in un- 

 waiered malt there is a loss of measure, the malt noi yield- 

 ing the same quantity as the barley. 1 also understood that 

 at many of the houses which I visited the frauds of short 

 wetting had been very extensively practised, and numerous 

 detections and prosecutions had been had thereon, and it is 

 impossible to doubt that these frauds have been and sti'l are 

 looked up to as a source of very productive emolunjent, ex- 

 clusivilv annexed to the watering system. In fact, not- 

 withstanding the preference given in the market to the Hert- 

 fordshire 



