well in an American oven of moderate size; but the loaves must not be very large; and they must receive constant attention to prevent their being scorched in one part before they are sufficiently baked in another. They should not be placed too close to the fire at first, nor at any time quite near to it. They should be watched and turned round from time to time that the heat may reach them equally; and paper should be laid over the tops if they should accidentally take too much colour before they are done. They will answer best in this kind of oven if put into tins suited to its dimensions. Persons who use the American oven habitually will find it a great advantage to have a tin-mould nearly the size of the interior (or two smaller ones fitted easily to it), of about an inch and a half or two inches in depth, and the same size at the top and bottom. This shallow mould or tin permits bread, cakes, and many other preparations, to be baked in the best manner that an oven of the above construction will permit, and renders it altogether far more useful than those which are simply fitted with the common tin tray usually sold in them.

If dough be very evenly pressed into a slightly buttered mould of the height that has been named, to within a third or rather more of its depth, and slightly cut once or twice across the top, it will form an exceedingly nice loaf provided the baking

be well conducted. Light cakes, thick gingerbread, various kinds of puddings also, may be baked in it with equal facility.

Care must be taken to place the American ovens always in such a manner that the heat of the fire may reach the lower as well as the upper compartment of them, otherwise the baking will be very imperfect. They are extremely useful when their management is once thoroughly understood, and answer best with a moderate and not a very fierce fire.

Ball's revolving oven. - This is a simple but very ingenious invention by which bread is baked in the same way that meat is roasted, by revolving in front of the fire; and it is so contrived that it may be suspended from the chimney-piece of any room at pleasure, which, in many cases, is a great convenience. It answers perfectly where the bars of the grate are straight and of the same width at the top and bottom, but not when the stove is of circular form, because it is essential that the heat should reach without impediment the lower part of the oven. Bread baked in it, if properly attended to, will be very light and good. Should the top not take colour sufficiently by the time the loaf ought to be done, the oven must be lowered, and left so until it is browned. It may

* Patentee, Mr. Ball, 3. Wells Street, Oxford Street.

be suspended from a bottle-jack, and will then require no attention beyond that of keeping up a proper fire while it is in operation; but when it is merely hooked to a woollen cord or a common string it must be closely watched, and kept turning, or the bread will burn. It is desirable to screen it from strong draughts of air during the process by placing something suited to the purpose before the fire. When there is no other oven of any sort in a house adapted to baking bread, this will be found very serviceable, particularly in remote country places, and in families who possess but scanty accommodation for domestic purposes. At a common kitchen-range, with a sound roasting-fire, a two-pound loaf will be done in an hour and ten minutes, and a four-pound loaf in nearly two hours. The price of these little ovens is very moderate, and they are light and portable. They do not require to be heated before the bread is put into them.

Observation. There can scarcely be a stronger proof of the value of home-made bread in London than the avidity with which the specimen-loaves are sought which are made by Mrs. Ball, and baked in the one or two of her husband's ovens, which are always to be seen in operation in their own shop.

SECTION III.

WHOLESOME AND UNWHOLESOME BREAD.

WHETHER it be made with wheat-flour or meal only, or with a portion of sound floury potatoes, or of well cooked rice, bread will be perfectly wholesome, provided it be sweet, light, and thoroughly baked, though it will be more or less nutritious. This will be the case also if it be composed in part of rye*, or maize, or oat-flour, or even of barley-meal, unless it should be for very delicate eaters, to whom the maize and barley are not so entirely adapted as flour of wheat.

Hot, or quite new bread†, is exceedingly un

* All kinds of grain are subject, while growing, to the attacks of diseases which render them unwholesome for food; but rye, more than any other, is dangerous to health and life when it is injured by what is called the "ergot." As it has then, however, a peculiarly acrid and repulsive flavour, its being diseased, or "horned," as it is termed, is easily perceptible.

Very strong persons of active habits, can eat this and many other things, with impunity, which are extremely harmful to those who are less vigorous. Heavy bread produces often serious attacks of diarrhoea, particularly in aged people. The poor, who are the greatest sufferers, in many cases from

wholesome. Heavy bread is dangerously so. That which has become sour, either from having been over-fermented in the making, or from having been ill-managed afterwards, is very objectionable; and mouldy bread also is unfit for food.

For constant eating, bread made with tartaric acid is not to be recommended, though its occasional use will do no harm. Invalids whose digestion is much impaired, should avoid bread enriched with butter, eggs, or cream; and when they suffer acutely, a small portion only of milk should be mixed with that on which they habitually subsist.

It is scarcely needful to name the flour of highly damaged corn as furnishing unhealthy diet. Mention has recently been made in our leading journal of some which was absolutely putrid; and in its transit from the coast to London, was a cause of annoyance, from the dreadful smell which it emitted, to the passengers of the train by which it was conveyed. This was, perhaps, an extreme case, and it might not be destined to find its way to the bakers; but I cannot too often or too forcibly repeat, that to nourish the eaters as it ought, and to sustain "man's strength" as it was

their ignorance of bread-making (as they cannot afford to throw away the food they have spoiled), experience alarming effects from living on it. Some striking instances of this have become known to me.

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