“Beer is not made from hops, my boy; it is made from barley. First the barley is slightly moistened, after which it is kept at a mild temperature. The grain begins to sprout just as it would do if sown in the field. For the nourishment of the little plants, which have no roots as yet, a special food already prepared is needed, just as the young kitten, not yet big enough to catch mice, needs its mother’s milk. All grain, in beginning to grow, whether it be wheat or oats or rye or any other, requires a special form of nourishment, ready prepared. But where do you suppose it is to be found? You hadn’t thought of that. I will tell you. The grain has it in itself. In a kernel of barley or wheat or oats or rye there is a white substance which, when ground to powder, is known as flour.” “Then the sprouting plant feeds on flour?” “Not exactly; flour is too coarse a food for it. The little plant takes its nourishment much as we do when we are very small. It sucks up water holding in solution the substances needed for its growth. But flour will not dissolve in water, as you very well know; consequently, the little plant would die of hunger right beside its store of provision if the flour were not prepared for it—I might say, cooked for it—in a way suited to its needs.” “That must be a funny arrangement—food cooked for a plant!” “It is more wonderful than you can imagine. As the sprout pushes upward the flour in the grain is being turned to sugar, real sugar, very sweet and easily dissolved in water; so that the young plant has for its nourishment a sufficient supply of sweetened water or, to express it in another way, a sort of milk.” “Oh, yes!” cried Emile. “Now I understand. Last Christmas Mother Ambroisine put some wheat to sprout in a plate and kept it moist on the mantelpiece. When the little blades began to show, the wheat was all soft and would crush under your fingers; and it gave out a sort of very sweet milk.” “This wonderful transformation of flour into sugar during germination is turned to account by man in making beer. He causes barley to germinate, and when he judges that all the flour substance it contains has turned to sugar he quickly kills the little plants, as otherwise the sweetened liquid would be taken up by them and would undergo another transformation by being turned into plant substance. Accordingly, the grain is promptly dried in an oven, after which it is ground in a mill, and this ground barley is called malt. By adding water and keeping it at a mild temperature we induce a fresh change: the sugar turns to alcohol, which is the essential element of beer and wine.” “The flour of the grain, then,” said Jules, “turns to sugar or to plant substance or to alcohol, according to the way it is treated; is that it?”