when it reached its destination, ruined by heating on the voyage.  It had become musty and of little or no value.  Kiln-drying is absolutely necessary to preserve it for exportation.  We must learn and practice the best mode of kiln-drying it.[30]”

The nutritious value of the “whole meal” of Wheat, as compared with that of the fine flour.—­The question whether what is called the whole meal of wheat, or that which is obtained by the mixture of the bran, contains more nutritious matter than the fine flour, is one of great importance.  In my former report, I adverted to the statement made in regard to it by Professor J.F.W.  Johnston, and which seemed to be almost conclusive in favor of the value of the whole meal.  During the past year, however (1849), M. Eug.  Peligot, an eminent French chemist, in an elaborate article “On the Composition of Wheat,” to which more particular reference will be made hereafter, combats the opinion that the bran is an alimentary substance.  He observes that “the difficulty of keeping the bran in flour intended for the manufacture of bread of good quality appears to result much less from the presence of the cellulose (one of the constituents of woody matter) contained in wheat than that of the fatty matter.  This is found in the bran in a quantity at least triple of that which remains in the flour, and the bolting separates it from the ground wheat not less usefully than the cellulose itself."[31] M. Millon objects entirely to the views of M. Peligot on this point, and states some facts which are especially worthy of consideration.  He asserts that, according to the views of the last named chemist, the separation at most of one part of fatty matter sacrifices fifteen, twenty, and even twenty-five per cent. of substances which are of the highest nutritive value.  This abstracts from wheat, for the whole amount raised in France, the enormous sum of about two hundred millions of pounds annually.

It seems that in France the question whether the bolting of flour is advantageous has always been decided in the most arbitrary manner.  An ordinance of Louis XIV., issued in 1658, prohibited, under a very heavy penalty, the regrinding of the bran and its mixture with the flour; this, with the mode of grinding then in use, caused a loss of more than forty per cent.—­(Comptes Rendus, February 19th, 1849.)

In large cities and elsewhere, there seems for some time to have been a growing prejudice against the use of brown bread; and it is said that now nearly all the peasantry of France bolt their flour.  The increase of this practice, according to M. Millon, threatens the nation with an annual loss of from two to three hundred millions of francs.  If the bran was entirely valueless, there would be a loss of more than one million a day.

It is quite difficult to determine the precise amount of bran which may have been removed from wheat, for various samples contain such a different proportion of bran that in the one case a removal of ten per cent, leaves more bran in the flour than a bolting of five per cent. in another.

    The following is an analysis of bran by M. Millon; the sample being
    a soft French wheat grown in 1848:—­