SUMMER MEETING AT BROOKFIELD. 19 



VINEGAR FROM CIDER AND ACIDS. 



CHAS. PATTERSON, KIRKSVILLE, MO. 



When Secretary Goodman asked me some time ago if I had any- 

 thing to offer for this meeting, I answered that there might be a good 

 deal (-aid about vinegar, but I could not at the moment indicate the drift 

 of it by a heading, further than that it would be in favor of cider and 

 against acids and whisky. Oaiission of the word " vinegar" at the end 

 of the sentence misled him to head this paper on the program as "Cider 

 Making," instead of the heading I have chosen. 



Before working up some of last year's phenomenal surplus of apples 

 into cider, I had been under the common impression that any apple juice, 

 in most any stage of decomposition, and whatever it might be mixed 

 or diluted with, was not. only passable, but good enough for vinegar, 

 and that it must be sold at prices to compete with others found on the 

 market. And when apparently good, strong vinegar, claiming to be 

 from "Janet cider," a little better perhaps than any I could produce, 

 could be laid down here at ten cents per gallon, you may easily judge 

 that the prospect of realizing a good profit on a quantity of cider was 

 not exhilarating, whatever first cost might be. By analyzing these ten 

 cents a little farther, we find that the empty barrel cost at least three 

 cents per gallon, and the freight was over three cents, leaving less than 

 four cents for making and handling, and in all probability did not gross 

 half that to the manufacturer. Bat on finally finding out and applying 

 the proper tests, it all proved to be made of sulphuric or muriatic acid, 

 costing not over two cents a pound, requiring only one or two pounds 

 for a barrel of vinegar, and it was much easier to account for the low 

 price than to compete with it. With such poisonous stuff nearly every 

 grocery in the country is presumably well stocked, as I found but one 

 single barrel of genuine cider vinegar in the city of Kirksville, except 

 what was made there. 



I have tried making cider from apples selected among rotten ones, 

 and even my indelicate taste could readily identify the contact by the 

 taint of rottenness, being quite distinct from the acoholic or acetic 

 fermentation in cider, and more like tbe putrefactive fermentation that 

 sometimes occurs. Hence I would peremptorily exclade all such lots 



