AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 181 



ing potatoes from those gathered on the Cordillera Mountains. They have 

 two new kinds of oak trees from China. France is now largely cultivating 

 the Sorghum — excellent for cattle. 



BISCUIT FODDER FOR STOCK. 



Mons. Naudin, a veterinary surgeon of the Impei'ial Guard, has been 

 successful in composing it of all the feed usually given to horses and cattle 

 — straw, hay, clover, oats, barlej, peas, refuse of the wine-press, pulp of 

 roots, stalks of millet, corn, leaves of grape vine, beets, of some trees. 

 All these are bruised and chopped together, a mucilage of barley flour and 

 a little salt are added, and all well mixed and left for a few hours, when a 

 slight fermentation sets in ; when it is put into square moulds, made into 

 cakes, and left to dry in a current of warm air. In this state it may be 

 preserved for a great length of time. When wanted for use, it is moistened 

 with about one-fifth of its weight in water, the cake is then broken into 

 seven or eight pieces, and put into the nose-bag, or manger. The cakes 

 should weigh about one pound each. Twenty of them are enough for the 

 daily ration of a horse. Mastication and digestion are easier, and the 

 general health of the animal secured. Enough can be prepared for winter. 

 All waste of food is obviated. 



Charles K. Gallagher, of Washington, North Carolina, speaks of wine: 

 Still wine from Scuppernong, and still wine from the native Pamlico grape, 

 dark colored — and perhaps, called M/sh, from the German who first brought 

 it into notice. Longworth thinks it the best, for wine, of any of our 

 natives. 



Dr. Gallagher exhibited some wine from the native grape of the vicinity 

 of Washington, N. C, and some also from the Mish grape, supposed to be 

 a Scuppernong stock, grafted with the Butters grape. Though there wa.s 

 a great deal of saccharine matter in the grape, sugar had been added in 

 the manufacture. Prof. Mapes remarked that the fermentation of the 

 sugar of grape, made brandy, while the fermentation of the cane sugar 

 makes rum. Brandy decomposes animal matter, rum preserves it. The 

 older a wine becomes to which sugar has been added, the worse it is ; the 

 older that wine which has no sugar added, the better its flavor. Old rum 

 has higher flavor than new ; brandy loses flavor with age. Hence the French, 

 when they put up fine wines of fleeting flavor, add brandy, not sugar, after 

 it has passed the period of fermentation. He had been making what they 

 called " wines " from fruit, from rhubarb, &c., to which he added sugar. 

 They certainly were very pleasant, but the trouble was, that they would 

 stay what he made them ; as fast the fusil oil separates, they become rum- 

 my. It was easy to increase and change the flavor of fruits, especially of 

 grapes. The experiment of mixing a drop of fusil oil with a drop of dif- 

 ferent acids, was familiar, and the production thereby of the flavors of dif- 

 ferent fruits. Now, when he saw that the union of tannic acid and fusil 

 oil gave the strawberry's flavor, it was easy to believe that dressing the 

 strawberry bed with tan-bark would improve the flavor of strawberries — 



