A STANDARD APPLE BARREL. 



303 



irom the lees, the barrel rinsed with hot and 

 cold water, and when drained quite dry in- 

 sert into the bung^hole a small cup, suspended 

 by a wire, containing one ounce of spirits of 

 wine or alcohol, ignited, and kept there 

 until the barrel is well fumigated ; the bung 

 must not be closed. Then return the wine 

 again and keep it there for three months, 

 when the same process is repeated. If it is 

 done a third time it will be all the better. It 

 is now finished, and can be kept any length 

 of time either in bottles or wood, slowly 

 improving by age. 



Grapes may be made into wine in the 

 same way as first mentioned above, with 

 this difference — that when the pumice is to 

 be repressed, that sugar dissolved with grape 

 juice (by heat) must be added to the water 

 that is mixed with the pumice, and to stand 

 a few hours before the second pressing. It 

 must contain the same proportion of sugar 

 and water as is found in the natural juice of 

 the first pressing, all of which is mixed well 

 tosfether and fermented as above. But if 



the grapes are left on the vine until they are 

 quite ripe, say until they have received the 

 effects of a white frost, and carefully selected, 

 the good from the bad, and thoroughly 

 pressed and fermented as above, without 

 the addition of either sugar or water, you 

 will have wine that is wine. It is true we 

 cannot have so great a quantity of juice, but 

 what there is, is good. 



P. S. — The object of the fumigating pro- 

 cess is to prevent undue fermentation. The 

 same effect is obtained in putting a i,opoth 

 part of powdered mustard into the wine ; 

 but how it acts is unknown. 



This article would be incomplete if I 

 omitted to give your numerous readers 

 Pasteur's method of preserving wine indefi- 

 nitely by heating it to so many degrees ; it 

 then possesses all the virtues of old wine. 

 But as this article is lengthy, I will defer it 

 for a future number of The Horticulturist. 



F. W. Porter. 



Mt. Forest, Ont. 



A Standard Apple Barrel. — Believing 

 as we do that the barrel as a package for 

 apples, potatoes, etc., will never pass away, 

 it is most important that the Dominion 

 should settle upon a uniform size — a size 

 that would be acceptable for the whole con- 

 tinent. The present legal apple barrel in 

 Canada is of the following dimensions : 

 Staves, from croe to croe, 27 inches, or 

 about 30 inches long; head, 16}^ to 17 

 inches, as nearly cylindrical as may be. A 

 recent proposed statute to come in force 

 July I St, 1900, calls for a barrel of nearly 

 the same dimensions, viz : Staves, croe to 

 croe, 27 ; head, 17; bilge, inside measure, 

 19. Since this statute was framed the 

 American Apple Shippers' Association have 

 agreed to buy and sell apples in barrels of 



which the measurements are as follows : 

 Staves, 28^ inches long ; head, 1"/%- inches ; 

 circumference, or bilge, 64 inches. This 

 barrel will hold only 96.51 imperial quarts, 

 dry measure ; while the barrel proposed to 

 be adopted July ist contains 103 imperial 

 quarts. The United States quarts are 

 smaller than ours, so the former barrel 

 would contain an even hundred of them, 

 and is known there as the one-hundred-quart 

 barrel. The same barrel w^ould hold 174 

 pounds of potatoes, an important product of 

 Nova Scotia, which that Province would 

 desire to export to the United States. For 

 these and other reasons the Nova Scotians 

 are most anxious for the adoption by the 

 Dominion of the loo-quart barrel. 



