Art. 1. 2. 3. i, NUTRIENTIA. 1 1 



fruits, feem to forward the faccharine procefs of their juices. 

 Thus if fome kinds of pears are gathered a week before they 

 would ripen on the tree, and are laid on a heap and covered, 

 their juice becomes fweet many days fooner. The taking orF 

 a circular piece of the bark from a branch of a pear-tree caufes 

 the fruit of that branch to ripen fooner by a fortnight, as I have 

 more than once obferved. The wounds made in apples by in- 

 fects occafion thofe apples to ripen fooner •, capriiication, or the 

 piercing of figs, in the iiland of Malta, is faid to ripen them 

 fooner ; and I am well informed, that, when bunches of grapes 

 in this country have acquired their expected fize, if the (talk of 

 each bunch be cut half through, they will fooner ripen. 



The germinating barley in the malt-houf'e I believe acquires 

 little fweetnefs, till the life of the feed is dtftroyed, and the fac- 

 charine procefs then continued or advanced by the heat in dry- 

 ing it. Thus in animal digeftion, the fugar produced in the 

 ftomach is abforbed by the latteals as feft as it is made, other- 

 wife it ferments, and produces flatulency -, fo in the germina- 

 tion of barley in the malt-houfe, fo long as the new plant lives, 

 the fugar, I fuppofe, is abforbed as fail as it is made *, but that, 

 which we ufe in making beer, is the fugar produced by a chem- 

 ical procefs after the death of the young plant, or which is made 

 more expeditioufly, than the plant can abforb it. 



It is probably this faccharine procefs, which obtains in new 

 hayftacks too haftily, and which by immediately running into 

 fermentation produces fo much heat as to fet them on fire. 

 The greateft part of the grain, or feeds, or roots, ufed in the 

 diftilleries, as wheat, canary feed, potatoes, are not I believe 

 previously fujpjected to germination, but are in part by a chemi- 

 cal procefs cbnverted into fugar, and immediately fubjedted to 

 vinous fermentation ; and it is probable a procefs may fome- 

 time be discovered of producing fugar from flarch or meal ; and 

 of fcparating it from them for domeRic purpofes by alcohol, 

 which diflblves fugar but not mucilage ; or by other means. 



Another method of increafing the nutriment of mankind by 



cookery, is by diflblving cartilages and bones, and tendons, and 



probably fome vegetables, in fleam or water at a much higher 



degree of heat than that of boiling. This is to be done in a 



dofe veflel, which is called Papin's digefter ; in which, it is 



faid, that water may be made redhct, and will then diflblve all 



animal fubftances; and might thus add to our quantity of lood 



in times of (scarcity. This veflei fhouid be. made of iron, and 



fhould have an oval opening at top, with an oval lid of iron 



larger than the aperture ; this lid fhould be flipped in endways, 



when the veflel is filled, and then turned, and railed by a fcfeew 



above 



