Report on Bread. 



Bread is a chief article of food for millions of the human family. 

 This renders it a thing for careful consideration, and for close in- 

 vestigation in regard to its composition. It is prepared principally 

 from the flour of three cereals, wheat, corn, and rye. The finest 

 and choicest bread is made from the flour of wheat. A coarser 

 and more common article is made of rye flour. And yet another 

 kind highly prized is the time-honored and delicious "Rye and In- 

 dian," seldom missing on the boards of the laboring classes. These 

 three are the " staff of life " for miJUons. We will speak of each 

 kind separately : 



WHEAT BREAD. 



The best wheat bread is made from the finest bolted wheat flour. 

 By the best, I mean not only the most palatable but the handsomest 

 bread. Graham bread, made from unbolted wheat flour, contains 

 all the elements of the wheat grain, and is considered not only very 

 healthful, but highly nutritious, and is used extensively by dyspep- 

 tics and people with a torpid digestive apparatus. But we will 

 speak of this hereafter. A well made loaf of wheat bread is a "thing 

 of beauty." In fact, bread making may properly be considered one 

 of the "fine arts." De Quincey treats of murder as one of the fine 

 arts, and certainly turning out a white, beautifully formed, fragrant 

 loaf of bread is as high an art as a skillfully performed homicide by 

 the most accomplished artist in that line. 



Allowed, then, that bread making is a "fine art," we will add to 

 this statement that it requires as much real taste and skill to make 

 a beautiful, palatable and healthful loaf of wheat bread as it does 

 to paint a picture or compose a poem. Mere practice alone will 

 enable many to produce a fair article of bread, but in order to be- 



