1885.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



247 



greasy and other wi'nc». Pasteur'i remedy for all 



thc!>e difficulties is " heat " whereby the germs are 

 all destroyed, and by this means a perfectly limpid 

 and laMing wine is vjcured. 



The fruit-groivcr and propagator, like the wine- 

 maker, have many perplexing questions to contend 

 with, and as yet but partly soltred, and probably 

 no small part of these originate from fermentive 

 contact. If I seek for a definition of pear, apple 

 or quince blight, we find no one quite positive as 

 to its origin. It certainly would not be unreason- 

 able to attribute it to fermentive life — a leavening 

 of the sap by absorption from without, by means 

 of some parasitic contiguity. At any rate this has 

 been my opinion for years, and so published it in 

 the Fruit Recorder 'A'i far back as November, 1877, 

 and thus offering a new field for the scientist to 

 work upon and giving an opportunity to the am- 

 bitious to attain fame by the study of micro-botany 

 in clearing up the doubts of a very prevalent tree 

 disease. 



The gardener, of course, has difficulties in germ 

 life, and especially in unhealthy seasons; but, so 

 far as many vegetables are concerned the process 

 of cooking destroys all vitality ; while those that are 

 consumed uncooked usually undergo a thorough 

 ablution in water, and in this way removing any 

 predominating germ influence upon the consumer. 

 It is in the decomposition of vegetables from causes 

 previously mentioned that the vegetarian need be 

 cautioned, and not when plucked fresh from the 

 field or garden of the grower. 



The farmer may have his attention called, inde- 

 pendent of germ influence upon the straw stack, to 

 several important items with which he is largely 

 interested. Milk is a prominent one, and is influ- 

 enced in many ways by germ ferments, and there 

 are at least a dozen organisms changing the con- 

 dition of milk. One will gelatinize or coagulate 

 milk, another absorb the sugar of milk and con- 

 vert it into lactic acid, and these in turn can be 

 changed by impregnating with other germs. Milk 

 is also often turned blue by a special ferment, and 

 when once this blue visitor appears, it is difficult 

 to extirpate it. The cholera bacillus is also at 

 home and thrives in milk, but can be readily de- 

 stroyed by heat. Cider and vinegar are also af- 

 fected with surrounding germ influence, and may 

 be good or bad according to circumstances. Pas- 

 teur has demonstrated also the fact that flies influ- 

 ence the spreading of certain ferments, and are to 

 be found in all places where vegetable matter is 

 turning sour, and with their feet and probosces 

 transport the seed by the million. He says : " In 



vinegar, in wine ',,■ ,,.^.:.. ■■'■' 'everywhere 

 around us, in our towns, in •• 'aere exists 



the little plant, mycoderma aceit , a/jd adds that 

 it is only nece'isary to put wine or vinegar into a 

 warm place and the fli':^ at once appear and dis- 

 tribute the seed ad infinitum. 



That flies have a legitimate errand to perform in 

 many ways will not be disputed ; yet under certain 

 well defined laws they can accomplish much mis- 

 chief when having ' . to ferm';ntable mat- 

 ter, by spreading '. I'he foliage of trees 

 suffers materially frcrm this cause, by implantirig a 

 foreign nucleus upon its surface, which in time per- 

 meates the whole texture of a leaf to its destruction, 

 and prematurely influencing the proper ripening 

 of the fruit. This is especially noticeable among 

 plum and peach foliage. 



In conclusion I would ask: What is human di- 

 gestion but a series of ferments, healthful or other- 

 wise, and characterized by surrounding con- 

 ditions, and in this way establishing a condnutty 

 of fermentive influence, link by link, from the low- 

 est animal or vegetable organism to that of man, 

 the noblest work of the Creation, and opening up 

 a field of study of great interest and worthy of con- 

 tinual investigation ? 



5<j Gregory Street, Rochester, N. Y. 



[We are glad to have these very suggestive and 

 profitable themes kept before our readers. On the 

 solution of many of these problems innumerable 

 practices of immense concern to the human race 

 depend. At the same time it mtist be remembered 

 that immense losses occur to communities from 

 practicing on half-learned problems. By way of 

 illustration : The city of Philadelphia has a hosfrital 

 for contagious diseases. The phyncian in attend- 

 ance bad $1 500 a year. The " Baccilians " of the 

 " Comma " persuasion so thoroughly frightened 

 the city, that his salary last January was raised to 

 $2000, because he would have his hands full of 

 cholera patients. Here we are on the first of Au- 

 gust not only without cholera, but with one of the 

 healthiest seasons known for a long time ; so much 

 so, that at no time has this hard-worked physician 

 had more than six patients in the hospital at one 

 time. Worse than all, it has recently been dis- 

 covered that the " Comma Badllus," in the germ 

 state, is always present here. It has not to be in- 

 troduced. We take it in with every breath, — and 

 it requires some pecul ar condition of the atmos- 

 phere or of the human system to make it sprout 

 into virulence. In its usual state of vital power 

 the digestive or pulmonary system can take in and 

 destroy all these ferment fungi. No one need 



