UNIVERSITY 



A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



ON 



THE MANUFACTURE OF VINEGAR, CIDER, AND 

 FRUIT- WINES; 



THE PRESERVATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES BY 

 CANNING AND EVAPORATION, ETC. 



PART I. 



THE MANUFACTURE OF VINEGAR. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



ORDINARY vinegar is dilute acetic acid, contaminated with 

 various vegetable impurities. In this form it has been known 

 from the earliest times, and its discovery must have immediately 

 followed that of wine, because it is evident that at the tempera- 

 ture of the Eastern countries, where the first experiments on the 

 juice of the grape were made, fermentation must have set in 

 rapidly, and the wine been quickly transformed into an acid 

 compound. Moses mentions it and Hippocrates made use of it 

 as a medicine. Its property of dissolving calcareous earth under 

 the development of effervescence was known in the earliest times, 

 and there cau be no doubt that its action upon metal, etc., had 

 been investigated at a very remote period. Pliny relates how 

 Cleopatra, by dissolving large pearls in vinegar and drinking the 

 resulting liquid, won her wager of being able to consume the 

 value of one million sesterces at one meal ; and Livy and 

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