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a display of the kind may fairly represent the best skill in 

 this department of household labor, 



Eegarded in this light, the conclusion is reached that very 

 many families have hardly yet learned what good bread is, 

 and that there is a wide margin for improvements in the 

 methods of bread making. No subject is certainly more im- 

 portant, as it has a direct bearing upon the health and conse- 

 quent happiness of households, and it should receive the at- 

 tention which it deserves. 



Besides the manipulating processes, the manufacture of good 

 ■bread involves some other considerations of no secondary im- 

 portance. It is useless to attempt its production with imper- 

 fect or bad materials. The flour or meal must be sweet and 

 from fully matured grain. During the past two years the 

 market has been crowded with flour of a damaged character. 

 The severe rains and long-continued moist weather at the 

 South and West, were unfavorable for securing the grain 

 crops, and much of it germinated in the fields and barns and 

 was thereby rendered unfit for bread making. In the germi- 

 nating process, diastase is formed ; this reacting upon the 

 starch of the flour in the baking, transforms it into dextrine 

 and sugar, and prevents the formation of light, spongy bread. 

 Flour from such grain will afford only sticky, glutinous, heavy 

 bread, no matter how much care and skill is bestowed in the 

 making. Fungous growths also appear in wheat injured by 

 moisture, and the flour becomes " musty." In bread from 

 such materials, beside its repulsive physical appearance and 

 unpleasant taste, a chemical change has occurred which ren- 

 ders it positively injurious as an article of diet. The nutritive 

 properties, the gluten, especially, has undergone decomposi- 

 tion and new bodies have been formed, which are not of an 

 alimentary nature. Impaired digestion, derangements of the 

 bowels follow the use of bread from such flour. The poor, 

 who are unable to pay large prices for choice, selected brands, 

 sufi'er greatly from this source, and much of the bread they 



