164 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
SOUTHERN SEEDLING APPLES— No. 8. 
NICK A JACK APPLE. 
Tnisapple originated with the Cherokee Indians in Macon county, North Carolina, and takes its name from a creek 
-of the same name. It was brought into notice and is extensively cultivated by that enthusiastic and liberal gentle- 
man and pomologist, Silas McDowell, Esq., of Franklin, North Carolina, It is one of the finest winter Apples, and 
a delicious fruit withal ; of a brisk acid, and fully first rate — ripens late, and keeps well until May. Recommended 
for general cultivation. Size from medium to large. J. Van Buren. 
Clarksville, Ga., 1855. 
SnmtBlic dDtannm^ aitit IRtrijits. 
A MODE OF IMPROVING BREAD. 
BY PROF. LIEBIG. 
It is known that the vegetable gluten of the various 
kinds of grain undergoes a change when moist ; in a fresh 
condition it is soft, elastic, and insoluble in water, but in 
contact with water it loses these properties. If kept a 
few days under water its volume is gradually increased 
until it dissolves, forming a thick mucilaginous fluid, 
which will no longer form a dough with starch. The 
ability of flour to form a dough is essentially lessened by 
■the property of vegetable gluten to hold water, and to 
place it in the state, for example, in which it is contained 
in animal tissues, in meat and in coagulated white of egg, 
in which the absorbed water does not moisten dry bodies. 
The gluten of grain, in flour not recently ground, under- 
goes a change similar to that which it suffers when in a 
wet state, for the flour absorbs moisture from the air — be- 
ing in a very high degree, a water-absorbing substance ; 
gradually the property ofthe flour of forming dough is 
lessened, and the quality of the bread made therefrom in- 
jured. It is only by artificial drying and keeping from 
the air that this deterioration is prevented. In rye flour, 
this change occurs as soon perhaps sooner than in wheat 
'flour. 
About twenty- four years ago, the Belgian bakers com- 
menced the use of a remedy, by means of which bread 
equal to that made frOm the freshest, best flour, was 
manufactured from flour, which, by itself, would give only 
damp, heavy bread. This remedy consisted of an addition 
of alum, or of sulphate of copper, to the flour. 
The effect of both these substances in the preparation 
of bread rests upon the fact that when warm theyfox-m a 
chemical combination with the gluten, (previously made 
soluble in water, and changed thereby,) which I’estoi’es to 
it all its lost pi’operties ; it is again insoluble, and capable 
of holding water. 
The relations of vegetable gluten to caseine, with which 
it has so many properties in common, induced me to make 
some experiments, whose object was to replace both of 
the substances (sulphate of copper and alum) so deleteri- 
i ous to health and to the nutritious properties of bx'ead, by 
some substance having the same effect, (as regai’ds the 
I gluten,) but devoid of injurious qualities. 
This substance is pure cold-saturated lime-watei'. If 
the lime water be mixed with the flour intended for dough, 
and then the yeast or leaven added thereto, fermentation 
progx’esses in the s|Lme manner as in the absence of lime 
water. If at proper time more flour be added to the 
“risen,” or fermented dough, and the whole formed into 
loaves, and baked as usual, a sweet beautiful, fine grained, 
elastic bread is obtained, of exquisite taste, which is pre- 
ferred by all who have eaten it any length of time, to any 
other. 
The proportion of flour to lime-water is 19.5; that is, 
for 100 lbs. flour, take 26 to 27 lbs. or pints of lime- water. 
This quantity of lime water does not sujlice for mixing the 
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