For tlle benefit of those not present at my lectures before tile Franklin Institute last winter, upon Modern Milling, I crave the indulgence of those who then honored me with their attendance, in order that I may give a brief and general outline of what constituted old-fashioned milling, and what are the changed principles which go to make tip modern milling.
Wheat, from which is made most of the flour we use, is a berry formed of two lobes, between which there is a lengthwise crease. This berry consislas tbr the most part of white starch granules, surrounded by white layers of cells containing a large proportion of gluten, which is nitrogenous, and the entire mass enveloped in thin brittle coats of brown woody fibre, called bran.
There is also a small, waxy, yellow germ, very nourishing, but discoloring to the flour.
Wheat is bought by weight more often than by measure; and tile tkrmer is not careful to remove from the berries the oats, grains of cockle and other seeds, chaff, chess, sticks, straws, gravel, sand, etc., which are mixed with the berries; nor to remove from the face of each grain the very fine dirt a~thering thereto. Still less is he careful to rub off ;the beard or fltzz found at tile end of each grain, and to brush out tile bluish crease dirt packed away between the lobes. These little trifles the tiller of tile soil leaves to tile one most iuterested~the miller.
While the object of milling (outside of.that done by those who advocate tile bran as tbod) is to get all tile starch and glutenous cells in tile shape of fine, sharp flour, fi'ee fi'om all bran pttrticles, grease, dirt and other foreign matter, and to get tile bran in as large scales as possible, free from adhering or intermixed starchy and glutenous granules,--the old-fashioned miller (and by ]tim I mean nearly every miller up to fifteen years ago, and many of the present day, of the type who believe that a water wheel runs ihster at night than during the day,