1837] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



283 



orone-filtli by tcoiliuir wilh boiled wheat, as there 

 is of two-til'tlis witli boiled barley. 



It is clearly proved, then, by these intercstinir 

 experiments, that' there is in most eases a consid- 

 erable saving by I'eedini; wiih boiled grain. It 

 would be well it'some intelii<rent gentleman would 

 undertake similar expermier.ts on feeding horses 

 and cattle wilh boiled or steamed grain or meal. 

 The advantage of feedinir with crushed grain, in- 

 stead of given it unbroken, hive been very satislac- 

 icrily proved and acted upon by Captain Cheyne 

 ( Qiiitrlerh/ Journal of ^^/gricuftiire, iii. 1024, and 

 iv. 37S), and recommended by iMr. Dick and oth- 

 ers. The steaming of potatoes is well known to 

 be advantageous in feeding both horses and 

 cows,* and more particularly in causing hens to 

 lay, and in liitlening pigs. "Why should not the 

 various sorts of jirain, such as peas and beans, 

 and meal, such as barley meal, given for similar 

 purposes, not be advantageously increased in their 

 nutritive properties by the same means? The ex- 

 pense of fuel, ihouixh it ought to be taken into ac- 

 count, must be small in comparison with the ad- 

 vantage, at least in districts where coal or other 

 fuel is reasonable in price. In large concerns, 

 also, the expense of fuel would of course be pro- 

 portionally less when compared with the saving in 

 ibod. 



Bread-making. — The most complete method 

 hitherto di«:covered tor bursting all the globules of 

 fecula, is the usual process of makmg bread, or, 

 as chemists term it, panification. This arises from 

 the presence in wheat flour of a substance tern)ed 

 gluten, associated with the globules of fecula, and 

 constituting in Hie unbroken grain its cellular tex- 

 ture or fi-ame work. It would lead us too far from 

 our present object to go into the history of this 

 important substance minutely, but it may be ne- 

 cessar}^ to slate, that the gluten may be procured 

 by kneading and washing a pi^ce of dough, made 

 with wheat flour, in a stream of water, till all the 

 globules of fecula are washed out. The gluten 

 thus obtained is a greyish mass, elastic, like Indian 

 rubber, when moist, and incapable of being dis- 

 solved in water. It is these two properties which 

 render it so important in bread making. 



When a loaf is put into the hot oven, the steam 

 and gases expand within it, and raise up the elas- 

 tic gluten into bladder-like vesicles; and by this 

 means expose the globules of fecula in the dough 

 more uniformly to the heat than could be efli^cted 

 without such agency. In consequence of this they 

 burst; and in a well-baked loaf of bread not a sin- 

 gle unburst globule of fecula can be found. On the 

 continent this is practically understood in the dis- 

 tricts where they feed their horses chieflj^on bread, 

 as in most parts of Belgium, Prussia, and Switzer- 

 land. The bread thus given to horses is coarse, 

 dark-colored, and rather sour, fi-om leaven being 

 employed instead of yeast; but the partial fermen- 

 tation caused by the leaven must assist in bursting 

 the globules and setting free the dextrine from the 

 action of the acid thus developed. 



* Accordinoj to the experiments fully related in the 

 10th and 11th volumes, pages 253 and 52, of the Trans- 

 actions of the Hig;hlarid Society, it would appear that 

 cattle thrive as well on raw turnips and potatoes as on 

 prepared, and yield more profit. The point has not 

 yet been sufficiently experimented on. But we have 

 no doubt that boiled corn would fatten cattle better 

 than raw. — Editor. 



According to M. Raspail,and the liict haii been 

 staled by others, the more of other fecula we mix 

 with good wheat flour, containing its due propor- 

 tion of gluten, the less increase of weight does the 

 bread acquire. For example, six pounds of fiour 

 will produce eight pounds of bread; but if three 

 |)ounds ot" potatoe-starch be mixed with three 

 pounds of wheat-flour, instead of eight pounds of 

 bread, there will only be six pounds. He explains 

 the circumstance from the globules of fecula while 

 unbroken, not imbibing water, but being only 

 moistened by its adhering to them; while the 

 gluten sucks in water like a sponge, and the more 

 it is kneaded, the more water it will take up. The 

 mixture, therefore, of other flour with that of wheat 

 diniini.-dies not only the weight, but the nutritive 

 materials in the bread. 



Nutritive Principles of the Food of Plants. 



It is stated in most elementary books, that the 

 chief food of plants consists of carbonic acid gas 

 diffused in water, together with potass and some 

 other matters apparently not well understood. But 

 a plain agriculturist not acquainted with science, 

 will very naturally ask how this is proved. By 

 burning plants, indeed, he knows that charcoal 

 (carbon) and potass may be produced; but in that 

 case, these are in a very diflerent state from the 

 one in which they exist in the growing plant. M. 

 Lassaigne, the able Professor of Chemistry at Al- 

 fort, devised the ingenious experiment of analy- 

 zing the chemical constituents of seeds before and 

 after germ mating, and in this way arrived at one 

 method of proof of the facts just stated; yet the 

 plain liirmer who might have witnessed such anal- 

 ysis, would readily make a similar objection to it 

 with that of procuring charcoal and potass by 

 burning, namely, that it was an artificial process, 

 and therelbre calculated to change the state of the 

 substances discovered. 



In order to elucidate these points, confessedly 

 difficult and obscure, M. Biot undertook the in- 

 vestigation, by applying his newly discovered and 

 powerful test of the rotatory polarization of light. 

 Before giving any details of Mr. Biot's experi- 

 ments, however, it may be well to state the views 

 ofM. Raspail respecting the imbibition and flow of 

 the sap, these being rather novel as well as proba- 

 ble. _ 



Circulation of the Sap. — All growing vegetable 

 textures are composed of cells, every where closed, 

 containino; a fluid, which is in continual motion so 

 long as the temperature is above 32*^ Fahr. The 

 cells adhere to one another, or rather are fixed to 

 one another by a sort of root or pedicle (hilum), 

 often too minute for observation; audit is this, and 

 the globules of the cell, which, being lengthened 

 out and expanded in the progress of growth, give 

 origin to new parts, or to the enlargement of old 

 ones. 



The circulation of the fluid in the cells, original- 

 ly discovered by Corti in the Chara, cannot be ob- 

 served when the cells are opaque, or the fluid trans- 

 parent; but an idea may be formed of it by filling 

 a tube with spirits of wine, having some raspings 

 of cork in it, and holding it in the hand, when the 

 heat of the hand will cause a current to rise from 

 the bottom up one side of the tube, and the cold at 

 the top abstracting the heat from the particles aa 

 they rise, will cause an opposite current to descend 



