STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 91 



vinegar market may be interesting. To give this we must go 

 back ten years. Previous to 1879, makers of Alcohol Vinegar, 

 were obliged to buy tax-paid alcohol from the regular distillers. 

 This prevented any injurious competition with Cider Vinegar. 

 About that time, however, some of the Alcohol Vinegar makers 

 obtained the passage of a law, permitting the manufacture of 

 a vinegar by the vaporizing process, in which is distilled a low 

 grade of alcohol, or low wines, supposed to be of too low a 

 strength for any use except vinegar making. This is allowed to 

 be done without any government supervision except the chance 

 visits of Internal Revenue officials. 



It was soon found that this opened the way for fraud in giving 

 a chance for making high wines and smuggling them on the 

 market, and some firms were not slow to work this gold mine. 

 Under this new system vinegar was made so cheaply, that soon 

 the market was overstocked with alcohol or "White Wine" 

 Vinegar, and so quantities of it were colored, branded, and sold 

 as Cider Vinegar. Efforts were then made by distillers of high 

 wines, and Cider Vinegar makers, to obtain a repeal or some 

 modification of this law, but they were unsuccessful. 



Later, matters have grown worse, competition has been so 

 great that the quality and strength have been lowered, until now 

 quantities of acid vinegar are sent out. You can have no idea, 

 without investigation, how much of this absolutely poisonous 

 vinegar there is on the market. I confess I had not begun to 

 realize it until recently, and the more I look the matter up the 

 more I am convinced of the extent of this iniquity. 



Recourse has been had in New York, Massachusetts, Con- 

 necticut and other States, to State laws regulating the manufac- 

 ture and sale of vinegar, and while I do not believe in making 

 special laws to regulate every little wrong, I do believe that the 

 only way to regulate this particular evil is through our State 

 Legislatures, and I also believe that this whole matter of adul- 

 teration of foods, will in time, and of necessity must, be regu- 

 lated by law. Our State has at this time a vinegar law, but it is 

 inoperative, as no provision is made for enforcing it. 



The vinegar laws of New York and other States prohibit the 

 manufacture, sale or exposure for sale of all acid, poisonous or 

 injurious vinegars; of vinegar below a certain strength, and the 

 branding or sale of any vinegar as Cider Vinegar, except such as 

 is entirely the product of the juice of the apple. The enforce- 

 ment of the law is placed, in some States, in the hands of the 

 Dairy Commissioner, and in others in Vinegar Inspectors, 

 appointed by the cities. There is nothing in these laws to 

 interfere with the legitimate manufacture of wholesome vin- 

 egar, and the effect has been good wherever such laws are 

 enforced. A correspondent in Connecticut writes me that the 

 "new Vinegar Law is doing much good; I do not know of any 



