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on grinding oat meal. June 27. and proprietor to fare the full benefits of the soil, there are several obstacles, particularly short leases, a diversity of weights and measures; services, multures, frauds in mixing meal, and the universal practice of grinding meal small in the north of Scotland. I am convinced that what improvements have been lately made, are owing to the granting long leases; but still the practice is far from being general; the slavery of services is daily waxing into desuetude; the high multures paid at the mills would require a particular consideration; the use of different weights and measures creates a confusion in calculation, and occasions a lofs to the ignorant seller. I fhall briefly hint the frauds in mixture; but my chief intention is to represent the folly practised at the mills in grinding the meal.

The use of oat meal is confined to a very narrow circle. Rye is the common food on the continent, and Scotland is unhappy from its having few markets to dispose of its superfluous grain.

For this reason, I cannot help thinking that Dr Smith was warped by local prejudice when he proposed abolithing the bounty on corn, which is only payable when the farmer cannot have a sufficient recompence for his labour at home. It surely is the duty of an enlightened legisla ture to procure, if possible, a certain market, with a reasonable profit, either at home or abroad; nothing else can guard against a famine in one year, and the commodity being too cheap in another.

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As the consumption of oat meal is confined to a few places, it ought to be the object of every cultivator to enlarge, as much as pofsible, the confined market; yet by strange fatality, from exaction of high multures, and the different methods of grinding the grain, this narrow market is rendered still more contracted. Thus, when there ic more meal in one place, than is necessary for the con

sumpt, if the superfluity be carried coastwise, it must be hipped to great disadvantage.

In the north of Scotland meal is ground small at the mill, in the south it is grinded round.

The consequences which ensue are,

Ist. If the north countries have meal to supply the south, the meal is sold two or three fhillings per boll cheaper than it would do if round ground.

2d. The meal contracts a more musty smell in the fhip, than if ground larger.

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3d. The fraud in mixing oat and bear meal is not so easily detected when the meal is ground small, as when round.

This fraud has been always practised; but since the year 1782, when necefsity was the excuse, it has made alarming progrefs, to the great discredit of the farmer and merchant. In Aberdeen the magistrates have of late, very properly checked the fraud, by appointing two markets, one for pure, and the other for mixed meal, and by punishing those who attempt to sell the last for the first. In the district of Buchan, resolutions have been made to check a practice which gives a bad character to the commodity; but I imagine nothing would more effectually detect the imposition, than by grinding the meal round universally. Probably the practice of grinding meal small, was first introduced from its making a detection of mixture more difficult; and it is certainly time to check a custom which hurts the fair dealer, and gives an opportunity for practising a fraud, that is daily increasing; as avarice knows no bounds.

I. cannot help thinking, that round ground meal, is better than small meal, in most of the ways in which it is used, and the palate of the commonalty will soon be reconciled to this alteration in their food; for we are not a WOL. ix.

.P.P

:

June 27* nation like the Rufsians, who raised a rebellion against

the great Peter for making them have their beards, to appear like their neighbours.

northern counties, to and, in that case, it them, if any of your

If what I have suggested have any weight, I hope it will induce the gentlemen of the take the matter into consideration; will be a considerable favour done correspondents, versant in the practice of the north and south, would inform them what is the difference of the machinery of the mills in the north and south counties, and how the machinery of the mills in the north could be altered, so as to grind the meal round, as is done in the south of Scotland.

Any hint upon this head, with some plain pratical directions to the millars, to instruct them in the alteration proposed, would be a service to the community at large. Your constant reader,

Aberdeen.

RUSTICUS.

* Nothing is more easy, and every miller in Aberdeenshire knows, that, by merely setting the stones a litte wider than usual, the meal will' be grinded rounder. But till the culture of small corn be abandoned, the practice of making round meal cannot become universal; as, from that kind of grain, a small kind of meal only can be obtained. While that kind of meal, called farm meal, is payable by their leases, the tenants will never abandon the practice of smalt grinding. Were nothing but white meal payable by the tenants, they would not be under the same temptation as at present.

oats?

N. B. The terms farm meal, and white meal, will not be understood by many of my readers; but they are perfectly familiar in Aberdeenshire. The first is an inferior kind of meal, made from a very small kind of with a long beard, that is only known, I think, in the northern parts of Scotland. The last is meal made from the kind of oats common in eve sy part of the country.

Edit,

SIR,

GLEANINGS OF LITERATURE.

To the Editor of the Bee.

RETURN you, with many thanks, the numerous volumes of political economy, from which it appears the excellent Adam Smith drew a great part of the materials for his noble treatise on the causes of the Wealth of Nations.

I have read that book with great attention, and have had recourse, at all the passages you had marked, to the authors from which you justly suppose he drew his first imprefsions of political conviction, on the subjects of his argument; and entertain no doubt that Dr Smith would have quoted those authors, if he had any where followed them so closely as to render it necefsary. But the truth is, as I know from having had the happiness to live long and much with him, that he reasoned, spoke, and wrote from complex results of logical induction, conversation, and reading, that rendered it almost impofsible for him to retrace the sources of his knowledge. Perhaps he should. have been fuller in a preface to mention the various writers on his subject. who had preceded him, in fixing the principles of political economy; but I believe he was induced to forbear attempting this literary gratitude, from his inability to recollect the nature of his obligations.

Every man must be apt to find an apology for the worthy Adam Smith in this particular, when he attempts to recollect the sources of his conviction on moral and political subjects; and to this jury I trust the reputation of my excellent preceptor and amiable friend.

So much for the Wealth of Nations, and its sagacious efsayist; but can I pass the consideration and the verdict,. without expressing my astonishment and concern that no learned friend of human kind has ever attempted a sub

ject of infinitely higher importance than an inquiry into the causes of the wealth of nations? which might deserve the title of An inquiry into the causes of the happiness of nations! Such a work, if executed with equal integrity, wisdom, and abilities, would entitle its author to the name of the Benefactor of the human race.

It would embrace, in its scope and argument, the health, morals, education, industry, good order, and political, sentiments of the people.

It would show that no object of revenue to a state; fhould induce the legislative power to encourage the use of such food or drink, or such habits and employments, as have a tendency to hurt the bodily organs, or to lower the faculties of the mind, as in the case of tea, tobacco, and ardent spirits; but above all, it would proscribe every branch of business that had a tendency to pervert the morals, or corrupt the heart of the people. The acquisition of wealth, when contrasted with the lofs of virtue, should; in no case, be put in competition.

That a modification of laws and political institutions; that have a continued tendency to promote venality, intemperance, and perjury, whether in electing the legisla tive body, or in attempting to evade the payment of taxes, ought to be changed, in such a manner as to remove the temptation or opportunity for such immoralities as have an immediate tendency to corrupt the whole man, and to destroy the moral sense, the force of parole evidence in the detection of crimes, and to produce an aptitude to universal corruption of manners, which goes to the dissolution of society itself..

That no institutions ought to be favoured by the state that have a tendency to keep youth in ignorance, or to expose it to such occupations or neglect, as must prevent it from being imbued with talents suited to the good of