86 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



has been considered more economical to build ex- 

 tensive flour mills, and grind their own corn, than 

 to verify each sack purchased, and to employ per- 

 sons in continually devising methods of detecting 

 the new modes of adulteration which might be re- 

 sorted to." Whether flour has been properly ground 

 or pulverized, and whether it has been properly 

 bolted or " dressed," and also whether or no it is 

 made of good wheat, any miller or flour merchant 

 can tell as well as an inspector. No one can do 

 more. Uniformity in quality, then, as contem- 

 plated by law, is impossible, because the capacity 

 of flour to make uniform bread cannot be told, 

 except by inspection of the wheat; which is never 

 inspected. 



Uniformity is also unattainable as to time, place 

 and duration. The guides to judgment are the eye 

 and the touch; the flour is seen and felt. It is on 

 the fleeting memory of these evanescent sensations 

 that an imaginary standard of quality is to be 

 formed in the mind, and retained from year to year, 

 to be transmitted unimpaired to each succeeding 

 inspector. Can this be done 1 Let us take a horse 

 whieh we have owned and known for years, so as to 

 be periectly familiar with his whole configuration : 

 and let us try '.o match him without having him 

 present. Every man knows that his first word is, 

 "put them together that we may examine them side 

 by side." If in a matter so obvious to sense, we 

 cannot trust the daguerreotype in the memory, how 

 can it be relied on in the far more delicate and sub- 

 tle matter of flour inspections 1 



Facts bear us out in this reasoning. We have 

 heard Mr. Delaplane, Flour Inspector of Richmond, 

 twice, and with great emphasis, declare before a 

 Committee of the House of Delegates, that he should 

 consider himself "a perjured villain" if he could 

 brand flour otherwise than strictly according to its 

 quality. Now it is notorious to the flour merchants 

 of the city of Richmond that country extra super- 

 fine rules from SI io $2 below certain descriptions 

 of city mills superfine, and that there is also that 

 difference between superfine flour of the Richmond 

 milk. It follows then, flour being at say $9, that 

 as a very sensitive Inspector, under a peculiar sense 

 of responsibility, often falls more than 20 per cent, 

 below his own standard ! Such daily occurrences 

 prove that, from whatever cause, practical accuracy 

 is tmattainable. 



% >True, Mr. Delaplane is backed by four out of 

 the six millers of Richmond and Manchester, who 

 signify their acquiescence in the law and his ad- 

 ministration of it, which means only this : that the 

 advantage of the law or its administration, is so 

 great to them, that they will stand a variance of 20 

 per cent, in the official assessment of their flour, 

 because their customers are not deceived by it, being 

 guided by the miller's private marks, and their 

 well known honorable dealing. 



Still more unattainable is uniformity as to place, 

 fcr the Inspectors are in different and distant places, 



without opportunities for conference and compari- 

 son of standards. 



No better is it as to duration. The first law of 

 time is change; and flour is not exempt from its 

 operation. The statute of 1781. which has been 

 quoted as the patent of the inspecion, and relied 

 on to justify it, made inspected flour receivable in 

 payment of debt, execution and taxes, but ther* the 

 Inspector's certificate expired by limitation in three 

 months. If three months' time in a dry warehouse 

 and dry climate deteriorates flour below the inspec- 

 tion, what must be the case when air, which can- 

 not be "plugged" out, when the whole is "plugged, 

 up," is admiued for weeks if not months of ocean 

 navigation and tropical exposure 1 The inspector's 

 brand then is a guarantee of deterioration, beginning 

 at its date. 



We will not pursue this point, so ably elaborated 

 by Mr. Mordecai and Mr. Edward Ruffin in their 

 reports on the operation and general policy of In- 

 spection Laws made to the Executive Committee 

 of the Virginia State Agricultural Society. 



Passing to the| next point, we argue that if the 

 operation of inspection were uniform, ;it would be 

 injurious to all parties. There are only five grades 

 of flour in Virginia: there are many more in lar- 

 ger markets; and each of these possesses some pe- 

 culiar quality in the eyes of the buyer which amounts 

 to another classification. In this way thers are 

 some twenty, perhaps more grades of flour in New 

 York, whither most of our export goes. Now it is 

 evident, since a miller can make more bad than 

 good flour from a given quantity of wheat, that if 

 he cannot reach a higher he will aim merely to pass 

 the lower grade of inspection ; and so, from the 

 few grades established, he will descend abruptly 

 several degrees of inferiority. If then inspection 

 rules the market it is a discouragement to competi- 

 tion, and a premium on inferiority; if it do not, it 

 is useless and should be abolished. The limits of 

 this essay, and the knowledge that it has been well 

 done by the gentlemen above spoken ©f prevents 

 additional proof of this point drawn from the no- 

 menclature of the article and a history of the law. 



The only thing, then, that an Inspector can do is 

 to see that the flour is bolted, and not mixe 

 corn meal, and that it is packed in barrels of suita- 

 ble size. These things are not offences of them- 

 selves, and it is an injury to trade and morals to 

 make them so by law. Not considering them here 

 as mala prokibita, we take their practical operation. 



Unbolted flour, making a sortof bran bread, is very 

 commonly used in Europe by the class of people who 

 consume most wheaten bread; and a mixture «f 

 corn meal and flour is recommended and used by 

 those vho wish to introduce maize as an article of 

 diet; flour below the grade of fine, coarse, but sweet 

 and healthy, would be gladly used by many of them 

 in preference to, or in substitute of, rye and oatmeal 

 and potatoes. But these articles for which there fa 



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