THE TRUTH ABOUT WHOLEGRAIN MEAL 1791-1941.

[Vermont: The Vermont Guild of Oldtime Crafts & Industries], [1941]., [1941].. Good. - Octavo, 9 inches high by 6 inches wide. Softcover, a 4-page pamphlet titled on the cover page above a wood engraving by Roy Williams depicting the Weston Old Mill. A four-page war time pamphlet extolling the virtues of stone-ground wholegrain meal and promoting that offered for sale by the Vermont Guild of Oldtime Crafts & Industries. The edges are darkened and there is an indentation from a paper clip at the top. Folded twice horizontally with short tears to the edges of the top fold, repaired internally with clear archival document tape. Good.

Together with the original 6 inch high by 5 inch wide order form printed on light blue paper: "This is my Order for Vermont Guild stone-ground 100% wholegrain Meals". There is a paper clip stain to the top of the order form.

From the collection of E. Harold Hugo, president of the Meriden Gravure Company, with an annotation penned in his hand at the top of the cover page: "you were about 100% right!"

The text by Vrest Orton recounts "The story of genuine 100% wholegrain corn and wheat meals, now stone-ground in an old-fashioned Vermont mill by an interesting non-profit Society". Extolling the virtues of the Vermont Guild's stone-ground meal and, in the last paragraph, offering a "free recipe cook-booklet" with every order: "These were printed only after months of experiment until they worked for this special kind of wholegrain corn and wheat meal. I know, as a matter of record, that they are just right and how. For my wife and I did all the experimenting for 6 months and I ate all the experiments for 6 months... until we both became letter-perfect."

"The Vermont Guild of Oldtime Crafts & Industries. Just north of the Common, on the millpond which dams the Wantastiquet, is an imposing red mill, headquarters of this unique non-profit Society founded in 1936.... Inside are displays of early Vermont craft-tools and industrial apparatus. But in 1938 it was transformed from a static museum into a living one by making the tools and machines work, so people could see HOW things were done. Perhaps the most successful was the stone grist-mill, with two massive French Burh stones.... This mill was belted to the old snail-shell turbine under the dam, and today turns out several wholegrain meals and breakfast cereals, distributed by mail into every state of the Union." [Quoted from an article by Vrest Orton, titled "The Weston Revival" published in "Vermont Life" magazine in the Fall of 1946].

The author, Vrest Orton (1897-1986), was the founder of the Vermont Country Store. Born in Vermont, Orton traveled throughout the United States and Mexico before settling down in New York City. He worked for H.L. Mencken on "The American Mercury", published "Dreiserana", "Vermont Afternoons with Robert Frost", "And So Goes Vermont" and co-wrote "Cooking with Whole Grains" with his wife Mildred Ellen Wilcox (1911-2010). Orton also founded the bibliophile magazine "The Colophon". Settling back in Vermont, he and his wife started the Vermont Country Store in 1946.

RARE.