439 Transactions of the Economical Society at Leipsic, 1772. Dresden, 8vo, p. 79.
440 According to the general rescript of 1750, which has been often renewed. The company obtained this exclusive right as early as the year 1668.
441 One may easily perceive by what Pliny says, that the Romans had made a variety of observations and experiments on grinding and baking. By comparing his information with what we know at present, I have remarked two things, which, as they will perhaps be serviceable to those who hereafter may endeavour to illustrate Pliny, I shall lay before the reader. That author says, book xviii. ch. 9, “Quæ sicca moluntur plus farinæ reddunt; quæ salsa aqua sparsa, candidiorem medullam, verum plus retinent in furfure.” A question here arises, whether the corn was moistened before it was ground, and whether this was done with fresh or with salt water. If Pliny, as is probable, here means a thorough soaking, he is not mistaken; for it is certain that corn which has been exposed to much wet yields less meal, and that the meal, which is rather gray or reddish than white, will not keep long. The millers also are obliged, when corn has been much wetted, to put it through the mill oftener, because it is more difficult to be ground. It is true also, that when salt water is used for moistening corn, the meal becomes clammier and more difficult to be separated from the bran. It is well known that it is not proper to steep in salt water, malt which is to be ground for beer. On the other hand, a moderate soaking, which requires experience and attention, is useful, and is employed in preparing the finest kinds of flour, such as the Frankfort, Augsburg and Ulm speltmeal, which is exported to distant countries.
There is another passage in the tenth chapter of the same book of Pliny, where he seems to recommend a thorough soaking of corn that is to be ground. “De ipsa ratione pisendi Magonis proponetur sententia: triticum ante perfundi aqua multa jubet, postea evalli, deinde sole siccatum pilo repeti.” I am of opinion that we have here the oldest account of the manner of making meal; that is, by pounding. This appears to me probable from the words immediately preceding, which I have above endeavoured to explain, and from the word evalli. I do not think that it ought to be translated to winnow, as Salmasius says, in Exercitat. Plinianæ, p. 907; but agree with Gesner in Thesaur. Steph., that it signifies to free the corn from the husk. The corn was first separated from the husks by pounding, which was more easily done after the grain had been soaked; the shelled corn was then soaked again, and by these means rendered so brittle that it was easily pounded to meal. The like method is employed when people make grits without a mill, only by pounding; a process mentioned by Krünitz in his Encyclopédie, vol. ix. p. 805.
442 Further information on this subject may be found collected in Krünitz, Encyclopédie, vol. iii. p. 334. According to experiments mentioned by Köhler, a hundred pounds of meal in Germany produce a hundred and fifty pounds of dough, and these a hundred and fifty-three pounds eleven and a half ounces of good bread.
443 See the treatise of Rosa, professor of medicine at Pavia, on the baking of bread in Lombardy, in Atti dell’ Academia delle Scienze di Siena, tom. iv. p. 321.
444 “Italy, the most celebrated country in the world, and abundant in grain, has no delicate, wholesome and pleasant bread, but what is baked by a German baker, who, by art and industrious labour, subdues the fire, tempers the heat, and equalises the flour in such a manner, that the bread becomes light, fine and delicate; whereas, if baked by an Italian, it is heavy, hard, unwholesome and insipid. His holiness, therefore, prelates, kings, princes and great lords, seldom eat any bread except what is baked in the German manner. The Germans not only bake well our usual bread, but they prepare also biscuit for the use of ships or armies in the time of war, with so much skill, that the Venetians have German bakers only in their public bakehouses; and their biscuit is sent far and wide over Illyria, Macedonia, the Hellespont, Greece, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Spain, France, and even to the Orkney Islands and Britain, to be used by their own seamen, or sold to other nations.”—Historia Suevorum, lib. i. c. 8. This history of Felix Fabri may be found in Suevicarum Rerum Scriptores, Goldasti. Franc. 1605, 4to, and Ulm, 1727, fol.
445 Bericht von Brodtbacken, etc., durch Sab. Mullein, Leipsig, 1616, 4to. Muller’s work is republished in Arcana et Curiositates Œconomicæ. By David Maiern, 1706, 8vo.
446 Schreber, in his Observations on Malouin, shows that the mill-stones in France are too large.
447 Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, ii. p. 259.
448 “Défenses sont aussi faites à tous boulangers, tant maîtres que forains, de faire remoudre aucun son, pour par après en faire et fabriquer du pain, attendu qu’il seroit indigne d’entrer au corps humain, sur peine de quarante-huit livres Parisis d’amende.”—De la Mare, p. 228. The following was the true cause of this prohibition. As a heavy tax in kind was demanded for all the meal brought to Paris, many sent thither not meal, but bran abundant in meal, which they caused to be ground and sifted there, and by these means acquired no small gain. When the tax was abolished, an end was put to this deception, which would otherwise have brought the mouture économique much sooner to perfection.
449 Histoire de la Vie Privée des François, par M. Le Grand d’Aussy. Paris, 1782, 3 vols. 8vo, i. p. 50.
450 Budæus De Asse. Basiliæ, 1556, fol. p. 214.
451 De Koophandel van Amsterdam, door Le Long. ii. p. 538.
452 Digestorum lib. xxxix. tit. 2. 24.
453 Ibid. lib. xliii. tit. 12. 1.
454 See a diploma of Frederic I., dated 1159, in Tolneri Codex Diplomaticus Palatinus, Franc. 1700, fol. p. 54. In Reliquiæ Manuscriptorum, P. Ludewig. Franc. 1720, 8vo, ii. p. 200, we read an instance of the emperor Frederic I. having forbidden the building of a mill.
455 Digestor. lib. xliii. tit. 11, 12.
456 Einleitung in die Lehre von den Regalien. Rostock, 1757, 4to, p. 494.
457 Chronicon Canon, reg. ord. August. capituli Windesemensis; auctore Joh. Buschio. Antv. 1621, 8vo, p. 73.
458 Schrevelii Harlemum. Lugd. Bat. 1647, 4to, p. 181.
459 This letter of Fulbert may be found in Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum.