290 SOME SPECIFIC ADVICE 



setts, for analysis, and I give here the percentage amounts 

 of grape-sugar and tartaric acid respectively : 



Ringed. Not ringed. 



Sugar 9.29 7.36 



Acid (tartaric) 1.17 1.15 



"At this time the girdled grapes were fairly well ripened, 

 very nearly as good as they became a week later, and bet 

 ter than those gathered October 8. They were sweet, with 

 about the right porportion of acid, while those not girdled 

 were quite sour and entirely uneatable. October 8, samples 

 were gathered of each and again analyzed, with the results 

 here given: 



Ringed. Not ringed. 



Sugar 9.12 6.65 



Acid (tartaric) 74 .51 



"At this date the girdled grapes had lost their refreshing 

 sparkle, while the others were quite satisfactory, being 

 sweet and having sufficient acid; yet the analysis tells us 

 that while the former had lost nearly two per cent of sugar, 

 together with more than 36 per cent of acid, the latter had 

 lost nearly ten per cent of the sugar that they contained 

 September 22 when uneatable, but had also lost more than 

 55 per cent of their acid. It would appear from these 

 analyses that it is not so much the absolute amount of 

 sugar present which renders fruit palatable by its sweet- 

 ness, as the corresponding absence of an excess of accom- 

 panying acid; and that the sense of taste is quite unre- 

 liable in judging of the amount of sugar present. 



"The proportionate enlargement of the berries was about 

 the same as in 1889, and notwithstanding that more than 

 five inches of rain fell between September 6 and 18, yet, 

 because of the looseness of the berries on the clusters and 

 the fine weather which followed, the girdled crop ripened 

 with only a trifling loss by splitting of berries, so that it 

 was all marketed by the time that the other grapes were 



