192 Instruction on the making of Bread 



A crop which seemed to promise a remarkable fecundity, aU 

 though it had been already a long time retarded by the influence 

 of the cold and wet season, has occasioned much inquietude and 

 fatigue to cultivators. 



Some instructions have been published, in order to sustain their 

 zeal and direct their labours. It has been recommended to them 

 10 put their sheaves under cover as soon as cut ; and not to wait 

 till the end of the harvest, to lead their produce home. It has 

 been also advised, that when they are obliged to leave any sheaves' 

 upon the ground, they should form them into little upright stacks, 

 put some covering over them, and thus secure them from the 

 pernicious influence of the wet ; and more particularly they have 

 been cautioned against heaping wet sheaves in granaries or in 

 stacks, and impressed with the necessity of thrashing them as 

 soon as possible, in order to extract from them at least a part 

 of the grain which they contain, and drying the grain before 

 sending it to the mill. 



These useful instructions have, without doubt, been sufficiently 

 disseminated; but it is to be feared that an inconsiderate at- 

 tachment to old habits has prevented them from being every 

 where followed with that attention which they merit ; and it 

 becomes thus the more urgent to provide the proper remedy 

 and prevent the progressive and prolonged increase of the evil. 



Alterations in wet Grain. 



Crops which have been for a long time more or less exposed 

 to an abundant humidity, experience different sorts and different 

 degrees of alterations. In each of these different states, thev 

 present different results — to the cultivator in regard to his seed 

 —to the miller in grinding — and to the baker in bread-making. 



Wet grain, when heaped up in granaries or in stacks, without 

 currents of air being preserved throughi the interior, as has fre- 

 quently been recommended, goes speedily to ruin ; the humidity 

 does not ascend to the top so as to evaporate ; it concentrates in 

 the intetior ; it rots the straw ; and according to its abundance 

 or its temperature, hastens the germination which has begun, 

 or rather excites a fermentation which heats and discolours the 

 grain; at times the grain becomes even mouldy, and the straw 

 reduced to the state of dung. 



The granaries and farm-yards have this year presented corn 

 in all these different states. When the grain of such corn is 

 sent without preparation to the mill, it clogs the millstones, and 

 is difficult to work : if the germination has only just com- 

 menced, the process goes on and is soon completed in the sacks; 

 and the flour made from it begins in a few days to collect into 

 pieces of such a consistency, that it is necessary, in order to 



make 



