322 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
forms. It is kept gently boiling for two hours, during which time 
it is constantly skimmed. Between the first and second hour, when, 
the skimming is nearly completed, the vegetables, with the burnt 
onions are put in, enclosed in a net bag. A gentle boiling is then 
maintained for four or five hours. The fire is then extinguished, 
and after an hour the vegetables, the meat and the bouillon are 
taken out. When the latter is to be used, the congealed fat is to 
be taken from the top, and the bouillon mixed with an equal quan¬ 
tity of water to make soup. 
It now remains to treat of the cereals particularly, and the kinds 
of aliment prepared from them, especially bread. The cereal grains 
proper for food of the human race are wheat, maize or Indian corn, 
rye, buckwheat, oats, barley and rice. Except rice and barley, 
these are generally ground into flour or meal, freed from the bran, 
and made into bread, cakes, gruel or porridge. These preparations 
are all more or less important as nutritive substances. But wheaten 
flour is the only preparation made from the cereals capable of 
making that most important of all alimentary articles, good bread. 
It is true that bread may be made from corn, rye and barley, and 
they are all more or less nutritive; but corn bread, which is largely 
used by the people of our Southern States, and is highly nutritive 
on account of the large proportion of oily matter which it contains, 
is apt to cause derangement of the stomach in persons not accus¬ 
tomed to its use, especially Tvhen not carefully prepared. In the 
large cities of the civilized world, corn is not a very important 
article of diet. 
Rye is sometimes used in place of wheat because of its cheap¬ 
ness, and it makes tolerable bread, but it cannot take the place of 
wheat as an aliment. In composition, it differs from wheat in con¬ 
taining less nitrogenized matter and more dextrine and sugar. The 
composition of buckwheat is nearly the same as rye, but it contains 
less dextrine and sugar. Principally in this country, it is used in 
making baked cakes, which are highly esteemed by many. In 
some of the poorer sections of the old world the flour is mixed with 
wheat flour in making bread, but only on account of its cheapness, 
4 
as it does not improve the flavor of the bread, and, as a nutritive 
article is very much inferior. Oats contain a large portion of oily 
matter, and are largely used as an aliment in Scotland, and in the 
northern counties of England. The oatmeal cakes so common in 
