It is curious that new flour does not afford bread of so good a quality as that which has been kept some months. The flour of grain too, which has suffered incipient germination, is much inferior in the quality of bread prepared from it: and from this principally appears to arise the injury which wheat sustains from a wet harvest. Various methods have been employed to remedy the imperfections of bread from inferior flour, such as washing the grain with hot water if it is musty, proposed by Mr. Hatchet;[5] drying and heating it even to a certain extent; adding various substances, such as magnesia, &c. Some experiments on this subject have been given by Mr. E. Davy. See a Treatise on Adulterations of Food, Second Edition, p.137. Footnote 5: See a Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons, Second Edition, p. 143. METHOD OF MAKING WHEATEN BREAD, AS PRACTISED BY THE LONDON BAKERS. To make a sack of flour into bread, the baker pours the flour into the kneading trough, and sifts it through a fine wire sieve, which makes it lie very light, and serves to separate any impurities with which the flour may be mixed. Two ounces of alum are then dissolved in about a quart of boiling water, and the solution (technically called liquor,) is poured into _the seasoning-tub_. Four or five pounds of salt are likewise put into the tub, and a pailful of hot water. When this mixture has cooled to the temperature of about 84°, from three to four pints of yeast are added; the whole is mixed, strained through the seasoning sieve, emptied into a hole made in the mass of the flour, and mixed up with the requisite portion of it to the consistence of a thick batter. Some dry flour is then sprinkled over the top, and it is covered up with sacks or cloths. This operation is called setting _quarter sponge_. In this situation it is left three or four hours. It gradually swells and breaks through the dry flour scattered on its surface. An additional quantity, (about one pailful,) of warm (liquor) water, in which one ounce of alum is dissolved, is now added, and the dough is made up into a paste as before; the whole is then covered up. In this situation it is left for four or five hours. This is called _setting half sponge_. The whole is then intimately kneaded with more water, (about two pails full,) for upwards of an hour. The dough is cut into pieces with a knife, and penned to one side of the trough; some dry flour is sprinkled over it, and it is left to _prove_ in this state for about four hours. It is then kneaded again for half an hour. The dough is now taken out of the trough, put on the lid, cut into pieces, and weighed, in order to furnish the requisite quantity for each loaf.