III.] MAKING BREAD. 45 



You get thirteen quartern loaves and a half; these 

 cost you, at the present average price of wheat 

 (seven and sixpence a bushel,) in the first place 7s. 

 6d. ;* then 3d. for yeast ; then not more than 3d. for 

 grinding^ because you have about thirteen pounds 

 of offal, which is worth more than a -J-d. a pound, 

 while the grinding is 9d. a bushel. Thus, then, the 

 bushelof bread of fifty-nine pounds costs you eight 

 shillings ; and it yields you the weight of thirteen 

 and a half quartern loaves : these quartern loaves 

 now (Dec. 1821) sell at Kensington, at the baker's 

 shop, at Is. ^d. ; that is to say, the thirteen quartern 

 loaves and a half cost 14s. 7^-d. I omitted to mention 

 the salt, which would cost you 4d. more. So that, 

 here is 6s. 3^-d. saved upon the baking of a bushel 

 of bread. The baker's quartern loaf is indeed 

 cheaper in the country than at Kensington, by, pro- 

 bably, a penny in the loaf; which would still, how- 

 ever, leave a saving of 5s. upon the bushel of bread. 

 But, besides this, pray think a little of the materials 

 of which the baker's loaf is composed. The alum, 

 the ground potatoes, and other materials ; it being a 

 notorious fact, that the bakers, in London at least, 

 have mills wherein to. grind their potatoes ; so large 

 is the scale upon which they use that material. It 

 is probable, that, but of a bushel of wheat, they 

 make between sixty and seventy pounds of bread, 

 though they have no more flour, and, of course, no 

 more nutritious matter, than you have iri your fifty- 

 nine pounds of bread. But, at the least, supposing 

 their bread to be as good as yours in quality, you 

 have, allowing a shilling for the heating of the oven, 

 a clear 4s. saved upon every bushel of bread. If 

 you consume half a bushel a week, that is to say 

 about a quartern loaf a day, this is a saving of 51. 

 4s. a year, or full a sixth part, if not a fifth part, of 

 the earnings of a labourer in husbandry. 



82. How wasteful, then, and, indeed, how shame- 



* All the calculations in this work, it must be remembered, are in 

 English money but may be turned into United States' money as before 

 directed, page 16. 



