ed to this point, as the most difficult and important part of his
operations. The process of making malt is an artificial or forced
vegetation, in which, the nearer we approach nature in her ordinary
progress, the more certainly shall we arrive at the perfection of which
the subject is capable. The farmer prefers a dry season to sow his
small grain, that the common moisture of the earth may but gently
insinuate itself into the pores of the grain, and thence gradually
dispose it for the reception of the future shower, and the action of
vegetation. The maltster cannot proceed by such slow degrees, but makes
an immersion in water a substitute for the moisture of the earth, where
a few hours infusion is equal to many days employed in the ordinary
course of vegetation, and the grain is accordingly removed as soon as
it appears fully saturated, lest a solution, and, consequently, a
destruction of some of its parts should be the effect of a longer
continuance in water, instead of that separation, which is begun by the
introduction of watery particles into the body. Were it to be spread
thin after this removal, it would become dry, and no vegetation would
ensue; but being thrown into the couch, a kind of vegetative
fermentation commences, which generates heat, and produces the first
appearance of a vegetation. This state of the barley is nearly the same
with that of many days continuance in the earth after sowing, but being
in so large a body, it requires occasionally to be turned over and
spread thinner; the former, to give the outward parts of the heap their
share of the acquired warmth and moisture, both of which are lessened
by exposure to the air; the latter, to prevent the progress of the
vegetative to the putrefactive fermentation, which would be the
consequence of suffering it to proceed beyond a certain degree. To
supply the moisture thus continually decreasing by evaporation and
consumption, an occasional, but sparing, sprinkling of water should be
given to the floor, to recruit the languishing powers of vegetation,
and imitate the shower upon the cornfield; but this should not be too
often repeated; for, as in the field, too much rain, and too little
sun, produces rank stems and thin ears, so here would too much water,
and, of course, too little dry warmth, accelerate the growth of the
malt, so as to occasion the extraction and loss of such of its valuable
parts as, by a slower process, would have been duly separated a