342 [Assembly 



Secondly. In the manufacture of ilour from wheat or rye or buck- 

 wheat, your committee believe that the manufaclurer endeavors to 

 preserve the shade of the flour, that is ihc wbitenei^s known to be- 

 long to the flour made from (he several kinds of grains which have 

 been named. 



If it be desirable to expel the moisture after the floi'r is ground, 

 and for that purpose the figency of fije be resorted to, whether in 

 kilns or by the use of tubes, ovens or surface iron plates, the flour 

 will be scorched more or less (whatever may be the degree of care 

 exercised,) and of course discolored. This di;>coioration is superadded 

 to the fact that fire, or the heat proceeding from kilns, ovens, or sur- 

 face plates, destroys the cohesive property of wheat flour, rye flour, 

 buckwheat flour, and indian corn meal, therefore y.)ur committee be- 

 lieve that when the agency of fire is resorted to for expelling mois- 

 ture the flour or meal loses an essential property to make your bread. 



Your committee have examined samples of wheat flour which 

 were presented by Mr, Stafford, parts of a larger quantity from 

 which sixteen and one-half pounds of water had been expelled to 

 each barrel. Your committee had no personal opportunity of prac- 

 tical experiment, but the samples exhibited a cohesiveness which 

 could not be distinguished from flour which had not pas:ed through 

 the drying process. 



Your committee also examined samples of white and yel>w Indi- 

 an corn meal, prepared in a similar manner in which the cohesive 

 property was retained ; and it would Lave leenditncult in iVi opin- 

 :.^ :^ J v>"i" Cvyaiiilttc to ha\c declui^<l ihat iIicPj was an act.ial dif- 

 ference between the cohesive property of the o<uinary and i'.ie dried 

 and cooled samples shown. 



The cotton crop of the United States annually exported amounts 

 to millions of pounds and the value is yearly increasing : The cot- 

 ton crop however is confined to a few degrees of laiitnde, a mere 

 spot, while the whej t and the rye fields, and the cultivation of the In- 

 dian corn extends from the St. Lawrence on the cast to the Lake of 

 the Woods, to the shores of the Pacific and thence in a line to the 

 Gulf of Mexico and the Rio Grande; and then up that river in a 

 direction to the Pacific ocean: It will require a numerator of many 

 figures in a few years to calculate the grain crop of the region re- 

 ferred to, and after the native population and the domestic animals 

 requiring attention have been fed, the balance will fall in the hands 



