PRACTICAL PAPERS—BREAD-MAKING. 
325 
This ascent favors the establishment of a current of heat, which 
is better than stationary heat, and it also promotes the circula¬ 
tion of the steam which is now universally introduced into 
ovens, near the mouth, while the baking is going on—an im¬ 
provement which adds materially to to the beauty and quality 
of the bread.” 
The commissioner also in his report, in summing up the re¬ 
sults of comparisons made at the Exposition, between bread 
mixed by machinery and that kneaded by hand, says : “ both 
systems are good. That made by hand is generally rega ded 
best for fine bread ; the other for good ordinary bread, and for 
cheapness, for promptitude and great rapidity in the process of 
manufacture.” 
He makes no mention in his report of “aerated” bread, but 
only of that fermented by yeast, from which it may be infer¬ 
red that the latter is the only kind ordinarily made by the ba¬ 
kers of continental Europe. 
Much is still to be learned in the art of bread-making. Not 
so much in regard to the manufacture of fine bread, as in the 
relation which this important article of diet bears to the food 
of a large portion of the human race, and in the cheap produc¬ 
tion of a wholesome, palatable bread. It is now almost uni¬ 
versally regarded as excellent in proportion to its whiteness, 
and the fineness of the flour from which it is made. But there is 
little doubt that the coarser, darker bread made from the flour 
of the entire grain—except the outer covering or bran—and 
which is not so finely ground as the superfine flour so gene¬ 
rally used, is more wholesome, not only because it contains a 
larger proportion of the most nutritious ingredients of the 
wheat, but also because of the extreme fineness to which the 
better brands of flour are ground, interferes with its ready di¬ 
gestion. 
