the flour of grain. The meal or flour of Britain is the finest and whitest in the world. The French is usually browner, and the German browner than that. Our flour keeps well with us, but in carrying abroad it often contracts damp, and becomes bad. All flour is subject to breed worms; these are white in the white flour, and brown in that which is brown: they are therefore not always distinguishable to the eye; but when the flour feels damp, and smells rank and musty, it may be conjectured that they are there in great abundance.

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 always is. 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 famous before his time for this produce; and 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; and the reason of this seems to be, that the whole country being full of sulphur, alum, vitriol, micaflakes, and bitumens, the air may have in time affected them so far as to make them diffuse themselves through the earth, and render it less fit for vegetation; and the taking fire of some of these inflammable minerals, as has sometimes happened, is alone sufficient to alter the nature of all the land about the places where they are.

The flour of Britain, though it pleases by its whiteness, yet wants some of the other qualities valuable in flour; the bread that is made of it is brittle and does not hold together, but after keeping a few days becomes hard and dry as if made of chalk, and is full of cracks in all parts; and this must be a great disadvantage in it when intended for the service of an army or the like occasions, where there is no baking every day, but the bread of one making must necessarily be kept a long time.

The flour of Picardy is very like that of Britain; and after it has been kept some time, is found improper for making into paste or dough. The French are forced either to use it immediately on the grinding, or else to mix it with an equal quantity of the flour of Brittany, which is coarser but more unctuous and fatty; but neither of these kinds of flour keep well.

The flour of almost any country will do for the home consumption of the place, as it may be always fresh ground; but the great care to be used in selecting it is in order to the sending it abroad, or furnishing ships for their own use. The saline humidity of the sea-air rusts metals, and fouls every thing on board, if great care be not taken in preserving them. This also makes the flour damp and mouldy, and is often the occasion of its breeding insects, and being wholly spoiled.

The flour of some places is constantly found to keep better at sea than that of others; and when that is once found out, the whole caution needs only be to carry the flour of those places. Thus the French find that the flour of Poitou, Normandy, and Guienne, all bear the sea-carriage extremely well; and they make a considerable advantage by carrying them to their American colonies.

The choice of flour for exportation being thus made, the next care is to preserve it in the ships: the keeping it dry is the grand consideration in regard to this; the barrels in which it is put up ought to be made of dry and well-seasoned oak, and not to be larger than to hold two hundred weight at the most. If the wood of the barrels have any sap remaining in it, it will moisten and spoil the flour; and no wood is so proper as oak for this purpose, or for making the bins and other vessels for keeping flour in at home, since when once well dried and seasoned it will not contract humidity afterwards. The beech-wood, of which some make their bins for flour, is never thoroughly dry, but always retains some sap. The fir will give the flour a taste of turpentine; and the ash is always subject to be eaten by worms. The oak is preferable, because of its being free from these faults; and when the several kinds of wood have been examined in a proper manner, there may be others found as fit, or possibly more so, than this for the purpose. The great test is their having more or less sap. See Flour and Wood.