For some years past, the French have been extolled for a mode of grinding, called _mouture economique_; that were we not aware such had been practised in ancient Rome, it might be conceived to form an important epoch in the miller’s art. This process, however, is not new; it consists in first grinding the wheat not so fine as might be required for ordinary purposes; afterwards putting the meal several times through the mill, and sifting it with various sieves. It should seem this method was practised in ancient Rome; for Pliny, who took care to inform himself of most things, tells us, that in his time they had, at least, five different kinds of flour, all procured from the same corn. It appears, that the ancient Romans had advanced very far in this art, as well as in that of baking, &c., from what may be collected from its economical polity preserved by Pliny and others. Whence it may be fairly inferred, they knew how to prepare from corn more kinds of meal, and from meal more kinds of bread, than the moderns even now are acquainted with. Pliny reckons that bread should be one-third heavier than the meal used for baking it: this proportion it appears, was known in Germany nearly a century and a half ago, and discovered from experiments on bread made at different times. German bakers, although they may have been occasionally mistaken, have always undoubtedly given more bread than meal. It appears that in latter periods, the art of grinding, as well as baking, has declined very much in Italy; and their bread, although produced from the finest grain in the world, is altogether bad when manufactured by Italians. On this account, bakers from Germany it seems, are generally employed in public baking-houses, as well at Rome as in Venice. Bakers of that people are generally settled at those places, where they have been in the habit of manufacturing that article for the principal inhabitants, for upwards of three hundred years. From Beckmann’s History, it would appear that the _mouture economique_ of the French has been known to the Germans for more than two hundred years. Many were the attempts, repeatedly enforced, to deter the experiments made, from time to time, by the French experimentalists, to perfect this article previous to its being accomplished. In this, the French suffered themselves to be taught by prejudice and directed by ignorance. Numerous and judicious were the experiments made by the scientific and philosophic of that people to produce the most in quantity and best in quality from a definite quantity of grain, at which the ignorant of their species suffered their prejudice to revolt, and the powerful readily come into the mode of thinking of the vulgar, to whom they lent their aid, to effect what Heaven in revelation had commanded, viz: “Give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” Mat. vii. 6.