I must not be tempted into a dissertation on this subject, but may merely remark that modern research indicates that many of these ferments are microscopic creatures, linking the vegetable with the animal world; they may be described as living things, seeing that they grow from germs and generate other germs that produce their like. Where this is proven, we can understand how a minute germ may, by falling upon suitable nourishment, increase and multiply, and thus effect upon large quantities of matter the chemical revolution above named. I have already described the action of rennet upon milk, and the very small quantity which produces coagulation. There appears to be no intercession of living microbia in this case, nor have any been yet demonstrated to constitute the ferment of diastase, though they may be suspected. Be this as it may, diastase is a most beneficent ferment. It communicates to the infant plant its first breath of active life, and operates in the very first stage of animal digestion. In a grain of wheat, for example, the embryo is surrounded with its first food. While the seed remains dry above ground there is no assimilation of the insoluble starch or gluten, no growth, nor other sign of life. But when the seed is moistened and warmed, the starch is changed to dextrin by the action of diastase, and the dextrin is further converted into sugar. The food of the germ thus gradually rendered soluble penetrates its tissues; it is thereby fed and grows, unfolds its first leaf upwards, throws downward its first rootlet, still feeding on the converted starch until it has developed the organs by which it can feed on the carbonic acid of the air and the soluble minerals of the soil. But for the original insolubility of the starch it would be washed away into the soil, and wasted ere the germ could absorb it. The maltster, by artificial heat and moisture, hastens this formation of dextrin and sugar; then by a roasting heat kills the baby plant just as it is breaking through the seed-sheath. Blue Ribbon orators miss a point in failing to notice this. It would be quite in their line to denounce with scathing eloquence such heartless infanticide. Diastase may be obtained by simply grinding freshly germinated barley or malt, moistening it with half its weight of warm water, allowing it to stand, and then pressing out the liquid. One part of diastase is sufficient to convert 2,000 parts of starch into dextrin, and from dextrin to sugar, if the action is continued. The most favourable temperature for this is 140° Fahr. The action ceases if the temperature be raised to the boiling point.