from sevei-al of ojir Garden Fruits. 297 



siderable proportion of native acid, and requires to be kept 

 a long while before it can attain its ultimate perfection. 



*' I have had too little experience in the practice of making 

 grape wine to enable me to speak with precision. The fla- 

 vour of different kinds of grapes, we know, varies considera- 

 bly, which must affect the wine; but other circumstances 

 in the process must affect it greatly. It is the only frnil 

 known in this country that affords juice in abundance suf- 

 ficient to admit of being made into wine without the addi- 

 tion of water, or rich enough without the use of sugar. Two 

 Tears ago the season was so favourable that niv grapes (the 

 muscadine) ripened completely, and I determined to try to 

 make some wine of them without either sugar or water. The 

 juice was squeezed out by hand without any other pressure, 

 as I had no press. It fermented verv well, and after a proper 

 time it was tried. The liquor tasted sw&ctish, but wanted 

 nuich of the vinous zest we wished for. This arose, I have 

 no doubt, from the want of a due proportion of native acid, 

 which would have been probably supplied by a complete 

 pressure of the must, had I possessed the means of doing it; 

 especially if the bunches of grapes had not been separated 

 from the small foot-stalks to which the berries adhere. But 

 not having a quantity sufficient to make it worth while to 

 have a press, I thought of another method of attaining the 

 end I aimed at, to which I was forced to resort : on linding 

 that birds and vermin are so greedy of the grape, that it is a 

 matter next to impossible to preserve them for anv time here 

 in quantities after they are ripe without being broken, which, 

 by letting the juice flow out, lodges between the berries in 

 the clusters, and which there becomes mouldv, and com- 

 municates a musty taste that cannot be gotten rid of. 



*' To avoid all those evils, I determined to gather the 

 fruit when it is so far ripened only as just to begin to be 

 pecked by the birds. As the juice possesses at that ti\ne 

 more vegetable acidity and less ol" the saccharine t'lste than 

 when fully ripe, I conceive that the wine made from it will 

 be sharper and have a higher zist than the other; but dread- 

 ing that the juice might not be suflicienily matured to do by 

 itself, } added a portion of sugar and water to the juice, and 



Jiave 



