REPORT OF THE STATISTICIAN, 161 



GRAPE-SIRUP. 



Mr. J. C. Weinberger, of Xapa County, California, is reported as hav- 

 ing experimented with success, which promises a remunerative industry, 

 in manufacturing a delicious sirup from the grape. He uses for this 

 purpose the Mission grape, for the alleged reason that, while less valu- 

 able for wine-making than other varieties, it is richer in saccharine mat- 

 ter. A ton of these grapes yields 120 gallons of juice fit for sirup. As 

 the juice expressed after it begins to be discolored is not suitable for 

 making sirup, tiiere is a residuum for wine-making, distillation, or feed 

 for hogs. Three gallons of juice make one of sirup. Cook's patent 

 evaporator (manufactured at Cincinnati) will reduce 250 gallons of juica 

 to sirup in about 12 hours. 



A correspondent, writing in January, 1877, reports that Mr. Wein- 

 berger and another person made at Saint Helena, the past season, from 

 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of grape-sirup, far superior to that from cane, 

 which finds a ready sale at 50 cents per gallon ; that at that price it will 

 be sufficiently remunerative to enable the manufacturer to pay the pro- 

 ducer $20 per ton for grapes j and that the farmers will become rich if 

 they can sell their immense surplus at that rate. 



SUaAR FROM WATEEMELO^-S. 



The following facts respecting an enterprise in California for manufact- 

 uring sugar, alcohol, and oil from the watermelon are communicated by 

 our correspondent at San Francisco. The islands in the delta formed by 

 the Sacramento Eiver on the north and the San .Joaquin on the south, 

 (in Sacramento County,) recently reclaimed, aggregate about 400,000 

 acres of alluvial deposit of marvelous fertility. The soil and climate 

 are especially adapted to the production of watermelons in great perfec- 

 tion. The yield was so abundant that to find a profitable outlet for 

 surplus crops, amounting to hundreds of tons, became to the farmers an 

 important inquiry, and stimulated endeavors and experiments in that 

 direction. By using only crude, primitive apparatus," they succeeded in 

 manufacturing sugar so satisfactory in quantity and quality, that several 

 enterprising farmers on Andros Island were inspired with faith to unite 

 in an enterprise for obtaining the best apparatus known, and manufact- 

 uring on an extensive scale. Tlie result is an organization incorporated 

 under the name of the California Sugar-Manufacturing Company, with 

 a capital stock of 82,000,000, of which, at last accounts, 50,000 shares 

 had been sold. The company are erecting, at Isletou, a factory and 

 appurtenances, for which they have imported machinery from Germany 

 at a cost of $10,000. The design, as reported, includes the manufacture 

 of two or three grades of sugar from the purer juice, alcohol from a 

 remainder in the pulp and rind, and oil for the table from the seeds. 

 The claim that the melons will yield about 10 per cent, of sugar and tho 

 seeds 25 per cent, of oil savors of sweetening and hibricatiug a little too 

 i>rofusGly, and needs confirmation. 

 11 A 



