THE FARMER AT HOME. 49 



exposed to the action of this fluid ; from the sarie taking place in 

 regard to the nerves of touch, and those belonging to the organs of the 

 voice, and the motions of the eyes ; from the impossibility of finding 

 a solid part of the brain into which the terminations of all the nerves 

 can be traced ; from the nerves of the finest senses, viz : hearing and 

 seeing being most extensively expanded, and most directly in contact 

 with this fluid ; from the preternatural increase of it in 'the ventricles 

 of rickety children, which may, perhaps, be the cause of their uncom- 

 mon acuteness of mind ; and, finally, from the fact that no animal 

 possesses so capacious and so perfectly organized ventricles as man ; 

 they being in the other mammalia much smaller than in. him, still 

 less in birds, least of all in fishes, and absolutely wanting in insects. 



BREAD. In the earliest antiquity, we find the flour or meal of 

 grain used as food. The inconvenience attending the use of the grain 

 in its natural state, and, perhaps, the accidental observation, that 

 when bruised, and softened in water, it formed a paste, and when 

 dried again a more compact, mealy substance, led, by degrees, to the 

 artificial preparation of bread. Easy as it seems to us, it must have 

 been a long time before it was completely successful. 



The grain was first bruised between two stones, and, from the meal 

 mixed with milk and water, a dry, tough, and indigestible paste was 

 made into balls. This is yet the chief food of Northern Africa. The 

 Carthagenians, also, eat no bread, and hence were called, in derision, 

 by the Romans, pultiphagi, that is, pottage eaters. 



The best and most wholesome bread is made in the United States 

 and in France. In England, the flour is adulterated with too many 

 foreign substances, in order to make the bread whiter. In some parts 

 of Sweden, the bread is composed, in part, of the bark of trees in win- 

 ter. In Westphalia, a kind of very coarse, black bread is made, of 

 which the peasants bake one large loaf for the whole week. This is 

 divided for use with small saws. In many parts of Germany, bread 

 is made of grain nearly entire, or but just bruised, which is very 

 coarse, and frequently forms part of the food of horses. Bread is 

 found wherever civilization has extended. The want of bread has 

 often occasioned public commotions, particularly in Paris and ancient 

 Rome. 



BREAD FRUIT. The fruit of the arto-carpm, or bread-fruit, 

 appears to have been first discovered to Europeans by the great 

 navigator Dampier. It is indigenous in the islands of the South Sea. 

 The tree is said to be of the size of a large apple tree ; the leaves 

 broad, and of a dark green. The fruit is appended to the boughs in 

 the manner of apples, and of about the size of a pound of bread, in- 

 closed in a tough rind, which, when ripe, turns of a yellow color. 

 The internal part is yellow s soft, and sweet. The natives of the 

 countries where it grows, bake it in an oven till the rind is black ; 

 and this being scraped off, they eat the inside, which is then white, 

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