SUGARS. 103 



gifts of a wise Intelligence to man. It is called cane-sugar 

 because it is produced spontaneously and abundantly in the 

 cane grown in tropical climates : but this is not its only 

 source ; the sweet juices of the beet, maple, madder-root, 

 and palm, contain it in considerable quantities. Why, in the 

 order of nature, it was necessary to sweeten our grapes and 

 other fruits with a different kind of sugar, is not clearly 

 understood. If it had so happened, that, in the construction 

 of the juice of the sugar-beet, one molecule of water, or the 

 elements constituting water, had been left out, our farmers 

 would never have almost ruined themselves financially by 

 erecting beet-root sugar factories in New England. 



It cannot be a mere matter of chance that substances used 

 as foods by men and animals are some of them sweet, and 

 others acid, or that some are sweetened with sucrose (cane- 

 sugar), others with glucose (grape-sugar), and still others 

 with levulose (fruit-sugar). There is a wonderful adaptation 

 of means to ends throughout nature. The sweet sensation 

 is generally agreeable, as has been before stated; but it must 

 be modified and adjusted, else it would become repulsive. If 

 our fruits were all sweetened with pure cane-sugar in differ- 

 ing proportions, they would lack a certain zest due to a 

 peculiar sweetness which they now possess ; or, if our grapes 

 did not form an exception to other fruits in the method of 

 sweetening, they would not be the delicious fruit so univer- 

 sally esteemed. Apples, pears, peaches, and most other fruits 

 are sweetened with levulose, or what may be regarded as a 

 mixture of sucrose and glucose ; and differing varieties hold 

 unlike proportions, giving, in conjunction with malic acid 

 and certain essences, the nice shades of flavor observed. The 

 manufacture of sugar is not set up in fruits until the period 

 of maturity is nearly or quite reached, and then the process 

 is usually a gradual one. 



The grape vine and fruit do not possess the power of 

 grouping the atoms of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen so as to 

 form molecules of sucrose : the result of their work is con- 

 fined to glucose. Hence a grape is never excessively sweet, 

 or it does not reach a degree of sweetness beyond what 

 glucose can furnish. If a grape were a solid mass of sugar, 

 it would not be very sweet, as the sugar is incapable of con- 

 veying to the taste any intense sensation. Every one who 



