The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1878-09-19
Making Bread Against Time.

We publish the following extract
from the Carrolton MO- Democrat not
to our farmers to harvest
and eat up their wheat crops at one
and the same time, but simply to call
the attention of our good house wives
to the celebrity with which Miss Alice
cooked those griddle cakes, would
that there were more such ladies in
our country and the quickness with
which "Mro. Lawton" supplied the
party with those one-minute bis
cults"
That article of diet called "biscuits''
is a curious thing. Were we an essayist,
biscuits" would be one of our first
subjects. We would like to write
upon the whole minutia of the thing,
following the flour from the barrel to
the breakfast table. The mOdus ope-
randi is a very interesting one, espe-
cially with the average negro cook
kneading the dough, rolling out the
biscuit, baking them half done in no
time, and eating them hot from the
oven, as a sort of half cooked COM
pound of salt, saleratus and flour, mix
ed up these hot days with a dash of
rather have Miss Alice to bake our
biscuits than aunt Judy" But read
the following extract:
1.-The last sensation occurred last
Thursday, when about fifty men were
present by invitation to see Jim Law
tor beat his own time of two years
ago, when his wife had bread baked in
eight and a quarter minutes after the
wheat was standing in the field. AT
40 10 o'clock the Buckeye reaper,
drawn by Cy Burnett's dun mules,
stood at the corner of the growing
wheat, machine in gear ready for a
start. Men were stationed all along
the line of grain ready to seize an
armful as it fell from the reaper, and
rush with it to the threSher close by,
which under the direction of veteran
drivers, was getting under way for
business. At the mill just sixteen rods
away Lawton stood at the window
watching the moment when McCaw,
on the swifteSt horse in the country
should start from the threSher with
the grain, while Mrs. Lawton and her
niece had all the preparations made to
make 9riddle cakes and biscuit in the
shortest possible time. At the drop Of
the hat the dun mules sprang to work,
and In one minute and fifteen seconds
the threshed wheat, about a peck, was
in the sack and on the horse, and the
race commenced for the mill. There
We're too bridges to cross, and the ex-
cited spectators could see only a col
umn of dust, hear a couple of taps on
the plank bridges as the horses flew
over them at a lightning speed, and
the wheat was delivered to Lawton in
the mill. In one minute seventeen
seconds the flour was delivered to
Mrs. Lawton, and in three minutes
fifty-five seconds from the starting of
the reaper the first griddle-cake came
from the hands of Miss Alice, was
gobbled by a dozen eager hands-and
that was the last of it. In four min
uteS thirty-Seyen cOn from the
starting of the reaper, according to
the best double timer ~stop-watch in
the country, a pan of biscuits was de-
livered to the hungry crowd by Mrs.
Lawton. and that was the last seer of
them. Then other pans of delicious
biscuits We're baked at more leisure,
and boiled ham and ''one-minute bis
cult formed a sandwich, it was right
hard to beat; and then, as it would be
impossible for a Western gathering of
any kind to be worthy the name with
out speech of some kind. Mr.. Smiley
proposed that Gen.. Shields make a
speech, which he did, in those incom-
parable graceful words of his that fill
even SO prosalc a proceeding as grind
ing wheat with the poetry of elo-
quence. Then Lawton, in his modest
way had to say something, and he
made a little speech, which was heart
lily %applauded as well as that of Gen.
Shields, and the party separated"