Cooley's Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts Volume I Part 246

9. Wheat flour adulterated with plaster of Paris, ground bones, chalk, and potato flour, has a higher specific gravity than a sample of the pure flour. This may be readily ascertained by any person by filling a small vessel with some pure flour, and then with the given sample. "A vessel which will contain 1 lb. of wheat flour will contain 1-1/2 lb. of fecula"

(potato flour), and hence "the proportion of this adulteration may be easily estimated." (Ure.)

10. If to a sample of wheat flour is added a solution of pota.s.sa, containing about 1-3/4% of the pure alkali, the granules of potato farina, or of bean meal, or pea meal, present (if any), will acquire 4 or 5 times their original volume, while those of the pure wheat starch will be scarcely affected by it. This change is very perceptible under a microscope of small power. 2 parts of liquor of pota.s.sa (Ph. L.) and 5 parts of distilled water form a mixture that answers for the above purpose.

11. By means of the microscope the admixture of the cheaper feculas and meals with wheat flour is readily detected by the characteristic appearance of the starch grains; and when the adulteration exceeds 9% or 10%, its extent may be readily estimated with considerable accuracy. As the range of adulteration is generally from 12% to 27%, this method is applicable in the greater number of cases.

_a.n.a.lysis._ The value of wheat flour as an aliment depends upon the quant.i.ty of gluten, sugar, starch, and phosphate of lime, which it contains; and its superiority over the flour of the grains of the other cereals is referred to its containing a larger proportion of the first and last of these substances than they do. The quant.i.tative a.n.a.lysis of flour is very simple, and may be easily made by persons unacquainted with chemistry, by attending to the instructions below:--

_a._ Make 1000 gr. of the sample into a dough with a little water, let it rest an hour and then gently knead it in successive water, until the starchy particles are perfectly removed. Collect the portion (GLUTEN) left in the hand, drain off the water, place it on a piece of filtering or blotting paper, several times doubled, and set it aside.

_b._ Mix the several waters employed in the preceding process, and set them aside in a tall vessel, to deposit the suspended portion (STARCH).

After a sufficient time pour off the clear liquid, and throw the whole of the sediment on a weighed paper filter, placed in a funnel, observing to remove the portion adhering to the bottom of the vessel by means of a little clean water, that none may be lost.

_c._ Evaporate the decanted liquid, as well as what runs from the filter, until it becomes curdy, then filter it through a piece of weighed blotting paper, and preserve the sediment (ALb.u.mEN); next evaporate the residuum to the consistence of a syrup, agitate it with 10 times its weight of alcohol, and filter, observing to wash the paper filter clean with a little alcohol after the solution has pa.s.sed through it. The substance on the paper is PHOSPHATE OF LIME and GUM, and must be set aside. By subsequent digestion in water, filtration, and evaporation, the two may be obtained separately.

_d._ Evaporate or distil off the spirit from the solution and was.h.i.+ngs, as above; the residuum is SUGAR.

_e._ Dry the substances educed as above, by a gentle heat, and weigh them.

The weight of the alb.u.men may be taken with that of the gluten, as it possesses about the same nutritive value, and also because it has been a.s.serted by some persons that the former substance is in reality gluten, and not alb.u.men. By dividing the given weights by 10, the per-centage value of the sample is obtained. The pieces of filtering paper employed should be carefully dried and weighed before using them, and the same degree of heat should be employed for this purpose as that to which they will be afterwards exposed in the drying of the substances resulting from the operations.

_Obs._ The above method of ascertaining the actual value of any sample of flour as an article of food, though not strictly accurate, approximates sufficiently to the truth for all practical purposes, and is well adapted to the wants of the baker and large purchaser. In many cases it will only be necessary to perform the first part of the process (_a_), which will give the per-centage of the most important const.i.tuent of the flour; the rest being of minor consequence.

In addition to what has been already stated in the article on BREAD, it may be useful to mention that a pound of the best flour, from thoroughly dried wheat, will take 10 fl. oz. of water to form it into ordinary dough, or 9 fl. oz. to form it into bread dough. Under the old parliamentary acts, a sack of flour (280 lbs.) was presumed to produce 80 loaves (quartern or quarter-peck), the weight of which, within 48 hours after being baked, was to be 4 lbs. 5-1/2 oz. each. At the present time fully 92 loaves, weighing 4 lbs. each, are produced by the London bakers from one sack of flour, when honest weight is given; but as the latter is rarely the case, and the bread is frequently 'slack' or 'under-baked,' and thus contains more water than good bread ought to do, a much larger product is commonly obtained. The dough loses about 1/7th of its weight in baking, if in batches; but fully 1/6th, if baked in small loaves, and placed in the oven separately. The best bread contains about 1/4-1/6th of its weight of added water; and common bread, often much more than 1/4th. The proportion of water in the London bread has greatly increased during the last few years, owing to the introduction of the fraudulent plan of making the dough with rice jelly or moss jelly. This is the reason why the bread of some bakers suffers such a loss of weight in a few hours after being taken from the oven. A 4 lbs. loaf of bread purchased from a baker at Lambeth, after remaining on the sideboard of a sitting-room for 24 hours, was found to have lost no less than 6-1/2 oz. by evaporation, and in two days longer its interior cells were covered with green mould, and the whole was unfit for food. The bakers, aware of these facts, are particularly careful not to bake more bread than they can dispose of whilst 'new,' and are in the habit of refusing to weigh their bread before selling it, when it is more than 10 or 12 hours old, although they are liable to be 'fined' for such a refusal. See BREAD, CAKES, FARINA, &c., also _below_.

=Flour, Baked.= _Syn._ FARINA TOSTA, F. TRITICI TOSTA, L. _Prep._ From wheat flour, carefully baked in a 'slack' oven, until it acquires a pale-buff hue. Astringent; used to make food for infants troubled with diarrha. See FARINA.

=Flour, Barley (Prepared).= _Syn._ FARINA HORDEI PREPARATA, L. _Prep._ (Ph. Bor.) From barley flour, compressed into a tin cylinder until the vessel is 2-3rds full, which is then suspended at the upper part of a still 2-3rds filled with water, and after the 'head' is fitted on, the water is kept boiling for 30 hours (2 days of 15 hours each). Lastly, the upper layer being removed, the rest is reduced to powder, and kept in a dry place.

=Flour, Boiled.= _Syn._ TRITICINA, FARINA PREPARATA, L. _Prep._ From fine flour, tied up in a linen cloth as tight as possible, and after it has been frequently dipped into cold water, the outside of the cloth is dredged over with flour, until a crust is formed round it, to prevent the water soaking into it whilst boiling; it is then boiled for a long time, and when cold, it is divided into small oblong pieces. For use, it is reduced to powder, either by grinding or grating it, and is then prepared like arrow-root. It forms a good diet for children, in diarrha, &c.; and as it may be easily prepared at home, it has the advantage of being free from adulteration.

=Flour, Jones's Patent.= _Prep._ From kiln-dried flour, 1 cwt.; tartaric acid, 10-1/2 oz.; mix thoroughly; after 2 or 3 days, add, of bicarbonate of soda, 12 oz.; lump sugar, 1/2 lb.; common salt, 1-1/2 lb.; mix, and pa.s.s the compound through the 'dressing-machine.' It is necessary that the whole of the ingredients should be perfectly dry, and separately reduced to fine powder before adding them to the flour. By simply mixing it with cold water, and at once baking it, it produces light, porous bread.

_Obs._ We have already had occasion to pay a pa.s.sing tribute to the excellence and usefulness of Jones's Patent Flour.[314] It is, indeed, invaluable to every household, as furnis.h.i.+ng the means of producing, with great economy, and extemporaneously, not merely cakes, puddings, pastry, and fancy bread, but the 'staff of life' itself, household bread, of a purity, flavour, and lightness, seldom, if ever, met with in that purchased of the bakers.

=Flour, Sewell's Patent.= _a._ (No. 1.) Flour, 1 sack (280 lbs.); hydrochloric acid (sp. gr. 114), 45 oz.; mix, by adding the acid in a 'spray,'--_b._ (No. 2.) To the last, add (expertly) bicarbonate of soda, 39 oz.; mix thoroughly, and pa.s.s the whole through a sieve or 'dressing machine.'

_Obs._ This flour is used as the last, to which, however, it is inferior in quality. No. 1 will keep 5 weeks. No. 2 will keep a month. Jones's flour will keep good in a dry place for years. If No. 1 is alone employed for the dough, to each pound of the flour, 65 gr. of bicarbonate of soda, with salt q. s., must be added. The patentee claims for his invention the merit of the soda and acid being converted into culinary salt in the process of making up the flour and baking the dough.[314]

[Footnote 314: See UNFERMENTED BREAD.]

=FLOWER DEW= (F. J. Weber, successor of Rau, Bamberg). A flat bottle with the name of Rau moulded on it; its gross weight is more than 80 grammes, but it contains scarcely 22 grammes of a nearly colourless but slightly yellow fluid, consisting of a pleasant aromatic solution of oils of bergamot, lemon, orange flowers, and rose in strong spirit.

=FLOWERS.= _Syn._ FLORES, L. These beautiful and fragrant ornaments of our gardens and our dwellings are too highly esteemed by all cla.s.ses of the community to require anything in favour of their cultivation to be said here. Our remarks will, therefore, chiefly refer to their collection, improvement, and preservation.

'Full' or 'double flowers,' or those in which the internal organs become petals, are so much more beautiful than the 'single flowers' of the corresponding species and varieties, that their production, with tolerable ease and certainty, has long been a desideratum with both the professional and amateur florist. Various plans have been proposed having this object in view, among which are the following:--1. The use of the best seed only, but not before it is at least 3 or 4 years old. 2. The selection of the outer row of seed only, and its careful preservation intact for at least 2 seasons before sowing it. We are a.s.sured that this method is particularly successful with dahlias. 3. The removal of the plants to a shady situation as soon as the flower-buds begin to develop themselves, and stinting them with water and nourishment for a few weeks. In this method a few only of the buds are permitted to mature; the rest being snipped off with a pair of scissors as early as possible. 4. The use of small pots and a scanty supply of water until the flowers are partly developed, when water is supplied in abundance, with or without the addition of a little liquid manure.

To hasten the blooming of flowers, it is a common practice with some gardeners to grow them in as small pots as is consistent with their healthy existence, and carefully to avoid transplanting them to larger pots, for several weeks before their usual time of blossoming. A plant on the point of flowering, if transferred to a larger pot and a richer soil, immediately commences making roots and leaves, whilst the embryo flowers either wholly decay, or their development is checked until the usual season of their production has pa.s.sed over.

The following liquid has been used with great advantage to promote the vigorous growth and the early flowering of plants:--Sulphate or nitrate of ammonia, 4 oz.; nitrate of pota.s.sa, 2 oz.; sugar, 1 oz.; hot water, 1 pint; dissolve and keep it in a well-corked bottle. For use, put 8 or 10 drops of this liquid into the water of a hyacinth gla.s.s or jar, for bulbous-rooted plants, changing the water every 10 or 12 days. For flowering plants in pots, a few drops must be added to the water employed for them. The preference should be given to rain water for this purpose.

The fluid sold under the name of liquid guano may be used in the same manner.

Flowers may be preserved in a fresh state for a considerable time, by keeping them in a moist atmosphere. When growing on the parent stem, the large amount of evaporation from the surface of their leaves is compensated for by an equivalent proportion of moisture supplied by the roots; but when they are plucked, the evaporation from the surface continues, while the supply of moisture is cut off. To supply, in part, this loss of moisture by evaporation, has arisen the almost universal practice of placing flowers in water; but their mutilated stems possess a far inferior power of sucking up fluids to that of the roots, and thus their decay is only deferred for a time. To preserve them more effectually, or at least to render their existence less ephemeral, we may surround them with a moist atmosphere, by which the loss of water from the surface of their leaves will be reduced to the smallest possible amount.

"It is now eighteen years ago since we first saw, in the drawing-room of a gentleman, in the hot dry weather of the dog-days, flowers preserved day after day in all their freshness by the following simple contrivance--A flat dish of porcelain had water poured into it. In the water a vase of flowers was set; over the whole a bell-gla.s.s was placed, with its rim in the water. This was a 'Ward's case' in principle, although different in its construction. The air that surrounded the flowers being confined beneath the bell-gla.s.s, was kept constantly moist with the water that rose into it in the form of vapour. As fast as the water was condensed it ran down the sides of the bell gla.s.s back into the dish; and if means had been taken to inclose the water on the outside of the bell-gla.s.s, so as to prevent its evaporating into the air of the sitting-room, the atmosphere around the flowers would have remained continually damp. We recommend those who love to see plenty of fresh flowers in their sitting-rooms in dry weather to adopt this method. The experiment can be tried by inverting a tumbler over a rose-bud in a saucer of water." ('Gardener's Chron.')

Another method by which some flowers may be preserved for many months is to carefully dip them, as soon as gathered, in perfectly limpid gum water, and after allowing them to drain for 2 or 3 minutes, to set them upright, or arrange them in the usual manner in an empty vase. The gum gradually forms a transparent coating on the surface of the petals and stems, and preserves their figure and colour long after they have become dry and crisp.

Yet another method (given in the 'Pharmaceutical Journal') is as follows:--"A vessel with a movable cover is provided, and having removed the cover from it, a piece of metallic gauze of moderate fineness is fixed over it, and the cover replaced. A quant.i.ty of sand is then taken sufficient to fill the vessel, and pa.s.sed through a sieve into an iron pot, where it is heated with the addition of a small quant.i.ty of stearin, carefully stirred so as to thoroughly mix the ingredients.

"The quant.i.ty of stearin to be added is at the rate of half a part to 100 parts of sand. Care must be taken not to add too much, as it would sink to the bottom and injure the flowers. The vessel with its cover on and the gauze beneath it is then turned upside down, and the bottom being removed, the flowers to be operated upon are carefully placed on the gauze and the sand gently poured in, so as to cover the flowers entirely, the leaves being thus prevented from touching each other. The vessel is then put in a hot place, such, for instance, as the top of a baker's oven, where it is left for 48 hours. The flowers thus become dried, and they retain their natural colours. The vessel still remaining bottom upwards, the lid is taken off, and the sand runs away through the gauze, leaving the flowers uninjured.

Faded flowers may be generally more or less restored by immersing them half-way up their stems in very hot water, and allowing them to remain in it until it cools, or they have recovered. The coddled portion of the stems must then be cut off, and the flowers placed in clean cold water. In this way a great number of faded flowers may be restored, but there are some of the more fugacious kinds on which it proves useless.

Flowers may be produced in winter by taking up the plants, trees, or shrubs in the spring, at the time when they are about to bud, with some of their own soil carefully preserved around the roots, and placing them upright in a cellar till Michaelmas; when, with the addition of fresh earth, they are to be put into proper tubs or vessels, and placed in a stove or hot-house, when they must be treated in the usual manner. By this method, in the month of February, fruits or roses will appear. Flowers sown in pots about Michaelmas may thus be made to bloom at Christmas.

The apparently instantaneous flowering of plants, exhibited a few years ago by M. Herbert to an astonished audience, was, we believe, effected by the heat generated by fragments of quicklime concealed in the mould close to, but not in immediate contact with, the roots. The plants selected by M. Herbert--a group of geraniums and a rose tree--were planted in two rather deep boxes of garden mould, and were covered with gla.s.s shades. The operator commenced by pouring over the roots, from a small watering-pot, a liquid which, uniting to the ingredients already in the earth, caused a great heat, as was shown by an intense steam or vapour, which was evolved within the shades, and allowed, to some extent, to escape through a small hole in the top, which at first was kept closed. The effect upon the geraniums was certainly almost instantaneous; the buds beginning to burst in about five or six minutes, and the plants being in full bloom within ten minutes, when the blossoms were gathered by M. Herbert, and distributed amongst the ladies present. With the rose tree the exhibitor was less fortunate. The invention may prove useful where ladies require to decorate their drawing-rooms or boudoirs with the beauties of the floral world somewhat earlier in the season than they can otherwise be obtained.

It must not, however, be forgotten that the plants are, as it were, parboiled during the process, and die after a few days.

As regards the sanitary value of flowers, Mantegazza, of Pavia, states that ozone is generated in larger quant.i.ties by certain plants possessing spicy aromatic odours, than by the action of electricity upon the air. He says that in some plants this ozone is developed by the direct rays of the sun, whilst in others the action, once begun in solar light, is continued in darkness; and that cherry-laurel, clove, lavender, mint, lemon, fennel, narcissus, heliotrope, hyacinth, mignonette, &c., all produce ozone largely on exposure to the rays of the sun.[315] He also finds that whilst the ozonigenic properties of flowers reside mainly in their perfumes, the most odoriferous yielding the largest amount of ozone, certain others possessing no particular perfume, have extraordinary ozonigenic power; as, for instance, the sunflower, broad belts of which were planted by the late Commodore Maury around the grounds of the national observatory at Was.h.i.+ngton, to the effect of which he attributed the after immunity of his family from intermittent fevers.[316]

[Footnote 315: The experiments of Mr Kingzetti on the limited oxidation of essential oils, lead to the inference that instead of ozone, peroxide of hydrogen is the body evolved.--ED.]

[Footnote 316: Recent researches seem to have shown that the hygienic properties of the sun-flower, like those of the Eucalyptus, are chiefly, if not wholly due to the power the plant possesses of abstracting enormous quant.i.ties of moisture from the soil, and thus removing from certain localities an active element in the production of malaria.--ED.]

The collection and preservation of flowers for medicinal purposes and distillation, will be found noticed under VEGETABLES.

=Flowers, Artificial.= The beauty and value of these pleasing articles of personal decoration mainly depend upon the taste and ingenuity of the maker. The delicate fingers of woman, and her ready powers of imitation and invention, combined with her natural affection for the chaste and beautiful, have enabled her the more especially to excel in this manufacture. The productions of the female artificial florists of the French capital are justly admired everywhere.

The French employ velvet, kid, and fine cambric for the petals, and taffeta for the leaves. Very recently thin plates of bleached whalebone have been used with great success for some portions of artificial flowers.

As colours and stains, the following are employed in Paris:--

BLUE. Indigo dissolved in oil of vitriol, and the acid partly neutralised with salt of tartar or whiting.

GREEN. A solution of distilled verdigris.

LILAC. Liquid archil.

RED. Carmine dissolved in a solution of salt of tartar, or in spirits of hartshorn.

VIOLET. Liquid archil, mixed with a little salt of tartar.

YELLOW. Tincture of turmeric.

The above colours are usually applied to the petals with the fingers.

=Flowers.= _Syn._ FLORES, L. Among chemists, this term is applied to various pulverulent substances obtained by sublimation, as flowers of antimony, benzoin, zinc, sulphur, &c. The term has been discarded from modern chemical nomenclature, but is still commonly employed in familiar language and trade.

=FLUID CAM'PHOR.= _Prep._ (Sir J. Murray.) From camphor (in powder), 1 dr.; freshly precipitated carbonate of magnesia, 2 dr.; cold distilled water, 1 pint; the solution is effected by forcing in carbonic acid gas under pressure. Each fl. oz. contains 3 gr. of camphor, and 6 gr. of carbonate of magnesia. See ESSENCE OF CAMPHOR.