ad quality of
the flour renders the addition of potatoes advantageous as well to the
baker as to the purchaser, and that without this admixture in the
manufacture of bread, it would be impossible to carry on the trade of a
baker. But the grievance is, that the same price is taken for a potatoe
loaf, as for a loaf of genuine bread, though it must cost the baker
less.

I have witness, that five bushels of flour, three ounces of alum, six
pounds of salt, one bushel of potatoes boiled into a stiff paste, and
three quarts of yeast, with the requisite quantity of water, produce a
white, light, and highly palatable bread.

Such are the artifices practised in the preparation of bread,[45] and it
must be allowed, on contrasting them with those sophistications
practised by manufacturers of other articles of food, that they are
comparatively unimportant. However, some medical men have no hesitation
in attributing many diseases incidental to children to the use of eating
adulterated bread; others again will not admit these allegations: they
persuade themselves that the small quantity of alum added to the bread
(perhaps upon an average, from eight to ten grains to a quartern loaf,)
is absolutely harmless.

Dr. Edmund Davy, Professor of Chemistry, at the Cork Institution, has
communicated the following important facts to the public concerning the
manufacture of bread.

"The carbonate of magnesia of the shops, when well mixed with flour, in
the proportion of from twenty to forty grains to a pound of flour,
materially improves it for the purpose of making bread.

"Loaves made with the addition of carbonate of magnesia, rise well in
the oven; and after being baked, the bread is light and spongy, has a
good taste, and keeps well. In cases when the new flour is of an
indifferent quality, from twenty to thirty grains of carbonate of
magnesia to a pound of the flour will considerably improve the bread.
When the flour is of the worst quality, forty grains to a pound of flour
seem necessary to produce the same effect.

"As the improvement in the bread from new flour depends upon the
carbonate of magnesia, it is necessary that care should be taken to mix
it intimately with the flour, previous to the making of the dough.

"Mr. Davy made a great number of comparative experiments with other
substances, mixed in different proportions with new bread flour. The
fixed alkalies, both in their pure and carbonated state, when used in
small quan