attention of governments, for this study, in its connection to political
economy, is bound up with the fate and the prosperity of nations. Wheat has
been cultivated from time immemorial. At first it was roughly crushed and
consumed in the form of a thick soup, or in cakes baked on an ordinary
hearth. Many centuries before the Christian era the Egyptians were
acquainted with the means of making fermented or leavened bread; afterwards
this practice spread into Greece, and it is found in esteem at Rome two
centuries B.C.; from Rome the new method was introduced among the Gauls,
and it is found to-day to exist almost the same as it was practiced at that
period, with the exception, of course, of the considerable improvements
introduced in the baking and grinding.

Since the fortunate idea was formed of transforming the wheat into bread,
this grain has always produced white bread, and dark or brown bread, from
which the conclusion was drawn that it must necessarily make white bread
and brown bread; on the other hand, the flours, mixed with bran, made a
brownish, doughy, and badly risen bread, and it was therefore concluded
that the bran, by its color, produced this inferior bread. From this error,
accepted as a truth, the most contradictory opinions of the most opposite
processes have arisen, which are repeated at the present day in the art of
separating as completely as possible all the tissues of the wheat, and of
extracting from the grain only 70 per cent of flour fit for making white
bread. It is, however, difficult for the observer to admit that a small
quantity of the thin yellow envelope can, by a simple mingling with the
crumb of the loaf, color it brown, and it is still more difficult to admit
that the actual presence of these envelopes can without decomposition
render bread doughy, badly raised, sticky, and incapable of swelling in
water. On the other hand, although some distinguished chemists deny or
exalt the nutritive properties of bran, agriculturists, taking practical
observation as proof, attribute to that portion of the grain a