360 FOOD AND FOOD ADULTERANTS. 



probably always be a favorite one with unscrupulous dealers. It must 

 be remembered, also, that with many American producers, whatever 

 article they produce, more attention is paid to its quantity than its quali- 

 ty. Wine-growers are not the only persons who practice this method, 

 as it can be done also by merchants and retailers, although in the latter 

 case it is much more easy of detection. That which might be called 

 scientific dilution, by means of the processes already described (petioti- 

 zation, &c.), is much more difficult of detection than the simple attenua- 

 tion of the wine by the retailer. So little official supervision has been 

 exercised over the wines sold in this country that certainly the fear of 

 detection has not operated very largely as a preventive of this, or in 

 fact any other adulteration. 



In Dr. Baumert's work, which has already been alluded to, 1 and to 

 which I shall have occasion to refer frequently as constituting, small 

 as it is, the only published investigation of American wines for adul- 

 teration, none of the samples fell below the German standard in per- 

 centage of extract (1.5 grams per lOOcc.). On the other hand, nearly all 

 the white wines which I submitted to a complete analysis fell below 

 this standard, and two of the red wines. A large number of the sam- 

 ples analyzed by Mr. -Parsons also fell below it. That this limit is 

 not placed at too high a figure, for California wines at least, seems evi- 

 dent from a study of the table I have prepared of Professor Hilgard's 

 analyses of pure wines, from which it appears that only one series of 

 analyses gave a minimum below it, while the averages are far above it. 

 It might possibly be too low for Virginia wines, but the majority of 

 those that fell belo w it were of California origin. The New York law 

 specifies (2) that "such pure wines shall contain at least 75 per 

 centum of pure grape or other undried fruit juice." Just how a chem- 

 ist, in the absence of legal definitions of what shall constitute a " pure 

 grape or other undried fruit juice," is to decide upon the question of 

 such adulteration by the above law is difficult to indicate. 2 



The samples which would be considered as watered according to the 

 German standard are as follows: Serial Nos. 5084, 5099, 4997, 4998, 

 5081, 5083, 5089, 5097, and 5098. 



. PLASTERING. 



American wines would seem to be quite free from this form of adul- 

 teration. Baumert found no undue excess of sulphates in the samples 

 he examined, but refers to a sample analyzed by Stutzer, which con- 

 tained in lOOcc. .141 gram SO 3 . In my seventy samples I found none 

 which exceeded the generally adopted standard of .092 gram SO 3 to 

 lOOcc., or 2 grams K 2 SO 4 to the liter, and only three, Nos. 5100, 5107, 

 ami 5115, which contained SO :i , corresponding to over 1 gram K,SO 4 

 per liter. 



1 Page 33U. 



9 It will be sec. 1 1 by the above that cidiM- would be considered ;us " \vino" under the 

 construction of the law, as it is Iho fermented jnico of "oilier undned fruit." 



