A STUDY OF WHEAT. 



35 



cans, the most of these substances are reported by foreigners, 

 for our American flours seem to be remarkably free from 

 adulterations, as compared with those of the old country. In 

 England, France and Germany, legislation on this subject has 

 been very rigid. So the subject has been more carefully studied 

 there than elsewhere. The millers and bakers of those countries 

 seem to possess no conscience whatever, and had for years, 

 before the government took hold of the subject, been in the 

 habit of selling to the public, under the name of wheat flour, 



Fig, 2. Potato Starch. Drawn with the Camera Lucida. Magni- 

 fied 475 diameters. 



anything whatever, without regard to its action on health. Some 

 little time ago, in examining a suspected mill in England, 600 

 pounds of alum were found. Fortunately, the English people were 

 saved from this inviting diet. 



Adulterations occur more generally when the harvest is 

 poor and grain is expensive. But it is a most remarkable 

 fact that the very weather which will spoil wheat crops is the 

 best weather to produce potatoes, so the first ingredient seized 

 upon by millers to mix with wheat seems to be potato flour. 



