200 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



dient injurious to health, proves that some authorities know these 

 articles to be injurious to health. I have seen free users of it who be- 

 lieved it had seriously injured them, and who attributed recovery to> 

 abstinence from its use. How many such cases may have occurred 

 when neither doctor nor patient has suspected the cause, we can 

 never know. Every reason and argument used in favor of the Oleo 

 law applies with much increased force in favor of a law to suppress 

 this dangerous fraud. Nothing short of suppression will protect the 

 public. Some one must have authority to take samples, and some one 

 must be competent to determine their composition, which must neces- 

 sarily cost something. The law should also prohibit coloring and 

 branding whisky and other vinegar to imitate cider. 



At present it is true that there is not one-tenth nor one-twentieth 

 enough cider vinegar made to supply the demand, if acid were pro- 

 hibited, and there never will be at the prices acid vinegar can be made 

 at. But suppress the acids and imitations of cider, and every farmer 

 who harvests a fair supply of apples for his family could easily make 

 a barrel of vinegar from the culls, besides his own supply, even with 

 the common hand-press, and all those who sell shipping apples could 

 make proportionately more, until it would become as regular an article 

 of export as apples are now, and bring the farmer as much per bushel 

 by putting some extra work on them. I can supply at least ten counties 

 myself with vinegar, from only a part of the culls that would otherwise 

 have gone to waste in our county. 



In conclusion, I may as well confess that I feel pecuniarily inter- 

 ested in such a law, but I do not propose to wait for you to get it 

 enacted and put in force. Before you can possibly do that, I shall have 

 either gone clear under, and been suppressed myself by the acid 

 vinegar, or I shall have established a business so firmly, in spite of 

 this unfair competition, that I will not need your protection as much 

 as I do now. I am glad to say that I believe the public sentiment will 

 amply sustain me in my efforts to introduce a pure article, if I can put 

 in work enough to place it before them in the right manner, of which 

 I think I have made a fair beginning. 



DISCUSSION. 



A. Ambrose— I was very much interested in the paper. I think 

 he is on the right track. The consumer prefers pure cider vinegar, but 

 it seems almost impossible to get it. 



C. C. Bell — I believe that is true, not only in regard to vinegar 

 bin also to many other things, the products of agriculture. A few years 

 ago T bought a good outfit and made the culls of my apples into jelly. 



