ng the importance of
the matters just referred to, but will only advert to the following
statements, which although made in allusion principally to maize,
are equally applicable to our other breadstuffs. Maize meal, if kept
too long, "is liable to become rancid, and it is then more or less
unfit for use. In the shipments made to the West Indies, the meal is
commonly kiln-dried, to obviate as much as possible this tendency to
rancidity." "When ground very fine, maize meal suffers a change by
exposure to the air. It is oxygenated. It is upon the same principle
that the juice of an apple, after a little exposure to the air, is
oxygenated, and changes its character and taste. If the flour could
be bolted _in vacuo_, it would not be changed." "Intelligent writers
speak of the necessity of preparing corn for exportation by
kiln-drying as indispensable. Without that process, corn is very
liable to become heated and musty, so as to be unfit for food for
either man or beast. The kiln-dried maize meal from the Brandywine
Mills, &c., made from the yellow corn, has almost monopolized the
West India trade. This process is indispensable, if we export maize
to Europe. James Candy says that from fifty years experience he has
learned the necessity of this process with corn intended for
exportation." "I have often found the corn from our country when it
reached its destination, ruined by heating on the voyage. It had
become musty and of little or no value. Kiln-drying is absolutely
necessary to preserve it for exportation. We must learn and practice
the best mode of kiln-drying it.[30]"

_The nutritious value of the "whole meal" of Wheat, as compared
with that of the fine flour_.--The question whether what is
called the whole meal of wheat, or that which is obtained by the
mixture of the bran, contains more nutritious matter than the
fine flour, is one of great importance. In my former report, I
adverted to the statement made in regard to it by Professor
J.F.W. Johnston, and which seemed to be almost conclusive in
favor of the value of the whole meal. During the past year,
however (1849), M. Eug. Peligot, an eminent French chemist, in an
elaborate article "On the Composition of Wheat," to which more
particular reference will be made hereafter, combats the opinion
that the bran is an a