The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1899-11-01
Home Made Flour.

our own citizens. Local ana Otate
pride and desire to be mutually
helpful should be enough to insure
the roller mills a market at home"
and the success of these establish
ments is evidence that they are re-
ceiving liberal patronage, yet many
hotels and houses are still using
bread made from Western -four. But
if nothing else will do it, self inter-
est should impel all to use home
made four, of the purity of which
we can assure ourselves. The adul-
teration OF much of the Western -four
is a matter of common knowledge,
but We quote as follows from the ed
itorial columns of the New York COM
mercial:
The habitual adulteration of -four
in this country is becoming a very
serious matter and one which should
be regulated, or rather annihiliated
by Act of Congress. There is no
article 90 extensively used as food
stuff. 1t is on every table in heland
three times day. The man who
adulterates it with white clay is a
criminal at heart. It is said that the
average chemist cannot detect the
adulteration. What then, are gro
Gerry store keepers, from whom the
vast majority of people get their
-four to do? The clay with which
-four is said to be adulterated is
found in South Carolina. It is claimd
that by judiciously using it as an in
gredient S4O0 can be saved in one
car load of -four. OF course it has
no nutritious properties, and, there
fore, in addition to endangering health
it affects the quantity of bread. An
other adulterant is a white rock
which is ground and mixed in. This
is not so popular, because in long
shipments it ehifts to the bottom.
Then there's is by-product of glo-
cose which is very popular with some
of the mill men. It contains sui
phuric acid, and there is so little
nutriment in it that so pounds would
not be any more sustaining than one
good hot biscuit like our mothers
used to make. A less Injurious mix
ture is corn -four; that is, Iodian corn
meal ground until it is as fine IS the
wheaton -four. Government experts
at Washington have failed to detect
Is per cent. of this adulterant in
samples set before them. The Louis
vile Courier. Journal calls attention
to sinister feature of this adulter-
izing habit into which the millers
have fallen. The domestic consump-
ton of wheat is about 300,000,000
bushels year. Five per cent. adul-
teration would displace 100000
bushels and Is per cent. adulteration,
which is common, would triple the
quantity.
Now, when we consider that the
South, as proved before committee
in Congress, is the dumping ground
for large portion Of this adulter-
ated -four, the proposition should he
plain that it is to our interests to en-.
courage our home mills, as consum-
ers can compel, by inspection ard
Influence, their products to be kept
pure. There is, however. little reas on
for the mills in this section to at
tempt adulteratiop, as they are, for
the most part, small ones, depend
ing upon the local trade and doing
an exchange business. Moreover,
they are interested in the ecourage-
ment of wheat cultivation, and, as is
intimated in the above quoted arti-
Gle, adulteraticn is inimical to the in
terest of the wheat growers, since it
brings into use substitute for that
grain. The war against adulterated
-four, therefore, can we'll be carried
on alone with the campaign for a
more general cultivation of wheat
and in both all of US in this part CT
the country can readily and heartily
join.
For success We must depend on
personal pressure. The consumers
the people who eat bread-should
demand of the hotel, the bakers and
the housekeepers that their bread be
made from home grown and home
ground -four. Then in turn let the
hotels, the bakers and the housekeer-
ers refuse to buy of the grocers and
wholesalers anything but pure -four
from home mills, the honesty of whose
managers is unquestioned.
Legislative action is all very we'll
in its place, and 1t may be expedient
to make a adulteration punishable,