G2 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



It will be seen then that, aside from the necessity of having sugar present in 

 jelly to act as a preventive, it is also essential to counteract the taste of the acid 

 which has been developed in the process of coagulating the juiceof the fruit, and 

 that by continuing to cook the jelly after the first transformation of the soluble 

 juice into the insoluble jelly, wo convert it again into a soluble substance 

 which we can never again gelatinize, and also set free a still stronger acid. 



Most persons in making jelly or canning fruit place the sugar in the kettle 

 with the fruit or juice, and then boil the whole until the fruit is ready to can 

 or the jelly seems ready to set. Right here a little science helps prevent this waste. 

 Ordinary cane sugar by the combined action of heat and a free acid is rapidly 

 and easily converted into grape or uncrystallizable sugar which has only :i-5ths 

 the sweetening properties of cane sugar. To illustrate this fact, I took one 

 hundred parts of ripe gooseberries, placed them in a porcelain stew-pan, 

 added sufficient water to cover them, then placed twenty-five parts of sugar in 

 the dish and stewed the whole until the gooseberries were cooked. In another 

 dish I placed one hundred parts of the same sample of gooseberries, covered 

 them with an equal amount of water and stewed them an equal length of 

 time with the first sample, but neglected to add the sugar until the cooking 

 had been completed and the stew comparatively cool, when I then added, 

 twenty-five parts of sugar to this sample. After the sugar had completely 

 dissolved in the second dish I analyzed both samples, and found that in the 

 first sample in which I had cooked the sugar with the fruit, half of the cane 

 sugar had been converted into grape sugar, while in the second sample where 

 the sugar was not added until the cooking of the fruit had been completed, 

 only one-tenth of the cane sugar was converted into uncrystallizable variety or 

 glucose ; that is in the cooking of the sugar with the fruit there was a loss in 

 the sweetening power of 30 per cent, while by adding the sugar at the end of 

 the cooking process there was a loss of only 6 per cent from the conversion of 

 the sugar. Another fact in this connection: by prolonged cooking of fruit 

 with sugar not only is there a loss of sweetening power and flavor of the fruit, 

 but, as already explained, the gelatinous substance is destroyed and this gela- 

 tinous material which serves to mask the taste of very sour fruits being 

 destroyed the acid of the fruit is brought out to its fullest extent. 



Many varieties of the plum contain as much acid as the cherry, but from 

 the presence of the larger amount of the jelly-making principles in the plum, 

 its acidity is not so apparent as in the cherry. Let the plums be cooked for 

 a long time, thus destroying the gelatinous principle and the acid effect is at 

 once brought out. By prolonged cooking with very acid fruits cane sugar can be 

 converted entirely into grape sugar, involving a loss of GO per cent of the 

 sweetening power. 



In conclusion allow me to suggest that although experiments in regard to 

 the length of time necessary to cook fruit to insure its preservation, the use 

 of both bi-sulphito of soda and boracic acid as preservatives, are subjects upon 

 which little investigation has been employed, they are still subjects worthy of 

 attention from poniologists. 



Because the topic elaborated by Mr. Kedzie was so intimately connected with 

 another upon the programme, discussion was withheld, and Mrs. Perry Mayo 

 of Marshall read an essay upon 



