STATE HOBTICULTUKAL bOCIETY. 41 



In a recent reliable authority (The Brewer and Distiller) it is 

 claimed that no less than eighteen different coloring agents and 

 twenty-five flavoring agents, besides five mineral substances, are used 

 by wine manufacturers to prepare wine for the market. This book 

 belongs to the trade, and is not intended for the public, so it can be 

 relied on as substantially correct. 



Such wines are no wines at all, and militate against the vine 

 grower. It keeps our grapes below the cost of production, and if 

 perchance the grape is used for wine purposes, it is so adulterated 

 with vile concoctions that it is no longer wine containing patho- 

 logical properties fit for use. Against these vile frauds every culti- 

 vator of the vine should raise his voice, not only so, but the people 

 of the State should put a stop to a system that prevents the culture 

 of the vine in our State. The persons who make up our State 

 Horticultural Society have fully demonstrated that the grape can be 

 made a profitable industry for our people, and can furnish grapes to 

 make pure wine, free from poisonous minerals that destroy man with 

 a lingering death. 



There can be but little better said of brandy. This is, when 

 pure, a product of the grape, being made from the lees of the grape 

 after the wine has been pressed out; or it may be distilled direct 

 from the wine; but when made from the lees, gives quite a profit, 

 that otherwise would be a loss. Such brandy, with suitable age, can 

 be used to great advantage as a diffusible stimulant in some forms 

 of disease. But the liquor vender cheats the public out of this pure 

 product of the grape by putting on the market a spurious article. 

 He takes alcohol, adds an excess of burnt sugar, sundry portions 

 of cayenne pepper, grains of horse radish, paradise, active ether, 

 etc. This doctored alcohol is barreled, bottled and labeled with gilt 

 letters, christened a la French. The very name is a fraud; not one 

 particle of grape enters into its composition. This is the stuff the 

 trade furnishes us with as a stimulant for our loved ones when sick, 

 which our husbands, sons and society are enticed to drink. It is a 

 disgrace to our State that such a fraud is tolerated. 



It has been demonstrated by careful chemical investigation that 

 the intoxicating properties of alcohol are greatly increased by being 

 thus made into artificial brandies, so these artificial brandies have a 

 lethal action of nearly double that of pure grape brandies. They 

 very soon produce chyrotic conditions of the liver and uriniferious 

 degeneration of the kidneys, as has been demonstrated by Faust, 

 Rabuhean and other eminent pathologists of the French school. 



As our nation is fast becoming a nation of beer drinkers, it 

 would be an interesting theme to follow up the tricks of trade 

 known to the brewers, but time would fail me. But I cannot pass 

 without giving a brief word to a slop known as orange cider. This 

 is a beverage comparatively new to the fashionable guzzler. It is 

 claimed to be made from oranges, as a means of working off the 



