470 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
'March 1G. 
large proportion of the most nourishing substances resides 
in, and is removed with, the bran, pollard, and middlings. 
“ Coarse flour contains all the most important substances 
required to support life, namely, nutritive food in the gluten, 
warmth-giving in the starch, an abundance of fat and oil, 
and a high proportion of bone-making and nutritive 
materials, in the pollard and bran; it follows, therefore, 
that brown bread, which contains a proportion of bran, &c., 
is a much more valuable food than that made from the 
finer flour, from which these substances have been entirely 
extracted. 
“ Bread. —Good bread should bo made of wlioaten meal, 
or flour, water, salt, yeast, and a small quantity of potatoes. 
Baker's bread frequently contains also a quantity of alum ; 
this is added for the purpose of enabling inferior flour to be 
used; it renders the bread whiter, tinner, and less crumbly 
when cut. The employment of this powerful astringent, 
however, is decidedly injurious, and aperient medicines are 
often requisite to counteract, in some degree, its evil effects. 
“ Flour, when mixed with water and yeast, and allowed to 
stand, undergoes a process called fermentation, and a 
portion of gas is thus generated. This gas, owing to the 
tough glutinous character of the dough is not able to escape, 
and it causes the latter to swell, and assume a spongy 
character, which greatly contributes to the digestibility and 
excellence of the bread. 
“ In preparing home-made bread, the usual plan is to mix 
the materials together, and allow the fermentation to proceed 
for about four hours before putting the dough in the oven. 
Bakers, however, adopt a very different course ; they mix a 
small portion of the flour with yeast, and set it to ferment 
for some hours previous to making the mass of dough; 
this they term “ setting the sponge,” and it is doubtless the 
best plan when a large quantity of bread is required. Good 
bread is of so much importance in a family, that the writer 
has taken some pains to procure the best receipt, and he 
has to express his obligations to Mr. Duer, of Bond-street, 
for the following directions, which, when strictly followed, 
he can state from experience, furnish bread greatly superior 
to that ordinarily made in private families. 
“ To make a Half-peck Loaf. —Take three-quarters-of-a- 
pound of well-boiled mealy potatoes, and mash them 
through a fine cullender or coarse sieve, add to them one- 
eighth-of-a-pint of yeast (about two table-spoonfuls), and 
one pint and three-quarters of lukewarm water (88° F), 
together with about a quarter-of-a-pound of flour, to render 
the mixture the consistence of a thin batter; this mixture 
should be set aside in a warm place for six or eight hours 
in order to ferment, at the end of which time, it will be 
found (if it has been warmly and closely covered over,) to 
have risen considerably, and to resemble yeast in appear¬ 
ance, except in colour. The sponge so made is then to be 
mixed with one pint of water nearly blood-warm (viz., 
03° F.), and poured into the half-peck of flour, which has 
previously had one ounce-and-a-quarter of salt mixed with 
it, and kneaded into dough, which should be allowed to rise 
in a warm place for three or four hours before baking. After 
the dough has risen, it should be handled as little and 
lightly as possible whilst it is made up into loaves. 
“ In some cases it will be found convenient to set the 
sponge over-night, and make the dough very early in the 
morning ; or the sponge may be set very early, and by 
keeping it and the dough rather warm, the loaves will be 
ready for baking in the afternoon. 
“ In the writer’s family, bread made according to these 
directions is found to bake admirably in ‘ The Cottager’s 
Stove’: the only caution required is to turn the loaves 
upside down when nearly done, to brown the under crust. 
“ Bread should never be eaten until it is twenty-four hours 
old. When taken sooner it cannot be masticated properly; 
it is therefore swallowed in doughy masses, extremely 
difficult of digestion. 
“ Some few years since, unfcrmented bread, in which the 
place of yeast was supplied by carbonate of soda and 
muriatic acid, was extensively tried, but the nicety of mani¬ 
pulation required, and the great attention necessary in 
weighing and measuring, renders the plan unfitted for 
general use ; with care, however, it is capable of furnishing 
an exceedingly palatable and wholesome bread. At the 
present time, various bread powders and patent flours are 
sold, capable of making light bread by the addition of 
water only; they contain, however, chemical substances 
which remain in the bread, and impart to it medicinal, or in 
some cases even injurious, properties. 
“ The only chemical substance capable of being used 
without any injurious effect in making bread is the car¬ 
bonate of ammonia. This is largely employed in light 
biscuits, &c. It is converted into vapour by the heat em¬ 
ployed in baking, and renders the biscuits very light, whilst 
it is itself entirely carried off during the process. 
“ All cakes which contain, in addition to the ingredients 
used for bread, fatty materials, as butter, lard, or dripping, 
are most indigestible, and unfit for children or persons with 
weak digestion. It should always be remembered that fat, 
when heated with flour, forms a compound which is acted 
upon by the digestive fluid slowly and with difficulty; hence 
most kinds of pastry, as pies and ordinary puddings made 
with flour and suet, are not suited to children or invalids. 
Biscuits containing butter are open also to the same 
objection. 
“ The following directions for making a perfectly unob¬ 
jectionable pudding for persons recovering from illness arc 
extracted from Dr. A. Thomson’s “ Domestic Management 
of the Sick Boom,” a valuable work for all whose duties 
call them to the care of invalids:— 
“ Grate half-a-pound of stale bread, pour over it a pint of 
hot milk, and leave the mixture to soak for an hour in a 
covered basin, just large enough to hold it, tie it over with a 
cloth, and hoil it for half-an-hour.” Sugar, and a little thin 
paling of lemon peel, may be added to give a pleasant 
flavour.” 
AMERICAN NOTES. 
It appears, from the following statement taken from the 
Zanesville Gazette, that the wheat crop of Ohio is annually 
diminishing. The yield was 
Bushels. 
Wheat crop of 1850.35,000,000 
Wheat crop of 1851.25,000,000 
Wheat crop of 1852...25,000,000 
Wheat crop of 1853. 22,000,000 
Four years’ crop.-..107,000,000 
Average crop of four years.20,750,000 
At the New Hampshire State Fair, Gen. Biddle, of Bed¬ 
ford, exhibited two horses, one 20 and the other 28 years 
old. The old fellows plowed their eightli-of-an-acre in nine¬ 
teen minutes, without rider, line, or whip. They have been 
kept for several years on a daily allowance to each of three 
pounds of cut hay mixed with three quarts of Indian meal 
and moistened. 
The Short horn Bull, Fourth Duke of York , purchased a 
few months ago at the Earl of Ducie’s sale, by Gen. Cadwal- 
lader, of Philadelphia and Geo. Vail, of Troy, N. Y., for five 
hundred guineas, died on board the Ship, Queen of England, 
on the passage between Liverpool and New York. 
The friends of Dr. Warder, of Cincinnati, and, indeed, 
all the friends of Horticultural science, will be pleased to 
learn that he has so far recovered his health as to be able 
to resume his labours as the principal editor of the Review .— 
He will be assisted by Mr. Ward, and the Review will doubt¬ 
less deserve, as it has heretofore done, the support of every 
friend of Western Horticulture and rural arts. 
One of our exchanges thus describes a com stock har¬ 
vester recently invented :—“ Between two wheels there is an 
axle, to each end of which is attached a knife for cutting 
each row of corn. To the axle is also attached shafts for 
the horse which pulls the machine.—The horse walks be¬ 
tween the rows of corn, and the knife just inside of each 
wheel cuts the corn, which falls on a bed to catch it, in a 
manner resembling the operations of a wheat reaper. The 
bed which catches the corn, opens to the centre at the plea¬ 
sure of the operator to discharge the corn in bundles. We 
are informed, that with one man and a horse the machine 
will cut 20 acres of corn per day. It is the invention of a 
citizen of Illinois.” 
Mr. C. A. Chapman, in giving an account in the Michigan 
