MEAL, the flour of grain. The colour and the weight are the two things which denote the value of meal or flour; the whiter and the heavier it is, other things being alike, the better it will always be found. Pliny mentions these two characters as the marks of good flour; and tells us, that Italy in his time produced the finest in the world. This country, indeed was, before his time, famous for flour; the Greeks have celebrated it, and Sophocles in particular says, that no flour is so white or so good as that of Italy. The corn of this country has, however, lost much of its reputation since that time.