prepared for the support of the higher animal
life; and their grain, filled with the substance which, for universally
understood name, may best keep the Latin one of Farina,--becoming in
French, 'Farine,' and in English, 'Flour,'--both in the perfectly
nourishing elements of it, and its {228} easy and abundant
multiplicability, becomes the primal treasure of human economy.

3. It has been the practice of botanists of all nations to consider the
seeds of the grasses together with those of roses and pease, as if all
could be described on the same principles, and with the same nomenclature
of parts. But the grain of corn is a quite distinct thing from the seed of
pease. In _it_, the husk and the seed envelope have become inextricably
one. All the exocarps, endocarps, epicarps, mesocarps, shells, husks,
sacks, and skins, are woven at once together into the brown bran; and
inside of that, a new substance is collected for us, which is not what we
boil in pease, or poach in eggs, or munch in nuts, or grind in coffee;--but
a thing which, mixed with water and then baked, has given to all the
nations of the world their prime word for food, in thought and
prayer,--Bread; their prime conception of the man's and woman's labor in
preparing it--("whoso putteth hand to the _plough_"--two women shall be
grinding at the _mill_)--their prime notion of the means of cooking by
fire--("which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the _oven_"), and their
prime notion of culinary office--the "chief _baker_," cook, or
pastrycook,--(compare Bedreddin Hassan in the Arabian Nights): and,
finally, to modern civilization, the Saxon word 'lady,' with whatever it
imports.

4. It has also been the practice of botanists to confuse all the ripened
products of plants under the general term {229} 'fruit.' But the essential
and separate fruit-gift is of two substances, quite distinct from flour,
namely, oil and wine, under the last term including for the moment all
kinds of juice which will produce alcohol by fermentation. Of these, oil
may be produced either in the kernels of nuts, as in almonds, or in the
substance of berries, as in the olive, date, and coffee-berry. But the
sweet juice which will become medicinal in wine, can only be developed in
the husk, or in the receptacle.

5. The office of the Chief Butler, as opposed to that of the Chief Baker,
and the office of the Good Samaritan, pouring in oil and wine, refer both
to the total fruit-gift in bo