and becomes clear at top; when it is carefully laded out of the
tub, leaving at the bottom a white sediment, which is the starch. The
water which is taken off is sour, and is called _sure_ water: this is
the proper leaven for the first steeping of the materials. The starch
now obtained must be rendered marketable; for which purpose, as much
water is poured upon it as will enable it to be pounded and broken up
with a shovel, and then the tub is filled up with fair water. Two days
after this, the water is laded out from the tub, and the starch appears
in the bottom, but covered over with a dark-coloured and inferior kind
of starch, which is taken off, and employed for fattening hogs. The
remainder of the sediment, which is good starch, is washed several
times, to remove all the inferior starch; and when this is done, about
four inches of thick starch should be found at the bottom of each tub:
but the quantity varies, according to the goodness of the meal or bran
which has been used. It is evident that the refuse wheat, when employed
for making starch, ought to afford more, the whole being used, than the
bran or husks; but the starch so extracted is always of an inferior
quality to that which is extracted from the bran of good wheat,
particularly in the whiteness of its colour. The starch in the different
tubs is brought together into one, and there worked up with as much
water as will dissolve it into a thin paste, which is put into a silk
sieve, and strained through with fresh water. This water is settled in a
tub, and afterwards poured off, but before it is so completely settled
as to lose all its white colour: this renders the starch which is
deposited, still finer and whiter; and the starch which is deposited by
the water so poured off, is of a more common quality. The starch, thus
purified, is taken out of the bottom of the tubs, and put into
wicker-baskets, about eighteen inches long and ten deep, rounded at the
corners, and lined with linen cloths, which are not fastened to the
baskets. The water drips from the starch through the cloths for a day,
and the baskets are then carried up to apartments at the top of the
house, where the floor is made of very clean white plaster; and the
windows are thrown open, to admit a current of air. Here the baskets
are turned downwards upon the plaster-floor, and the linen cloths, not
being fastened to the baskets, follow the starch, and when taken off,
leave loaves, or cakes of sta