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;