COMMUNICATION FROM N. LONG WORTH. 103 



were allowed to do it. But the vine-dressers, both of Ger- 

 maii}'- and Spain, liave a greater evil to contend with. In a 

 season when the yield is abundant, so low is the price of wine 

 in Germany, that if you will take two empty casks to the 

 press, you will be allowed to carry away one of them filled 

 from the press. In Spain the evil is still greater. Mr. Sam- 

 uel E. FooTE, who was many years purchasing wine in Spain, 

 informs me that he paid the cooper 813 for wine pipes, and 

 the vine-dresser 85 for fiHinq- them. 



Mr. Rehfuss recently imported from Germany the instru- 

 ments used there for testing the saccharine quality of the 

 must, and the strength of the wine when fully fermented. 

 The result surprised me. Our must this season ranged from 

 80 to 101 degrees. I am informed, by intelligent German vine- 

 dressers and wine-coopers, that in Germany it ranges from 70 

 to 90. Many are under the impression that the grape, farther 

 south, possesses more of the saccharine principle than it does 

 with us. I believe this is never the case ; and if it is, it is 

 more than counterbalanced by their vintage coming on in the 

 heat of summer, and the grape possessing a larger portion of 

 the fermenting principle. Very few, if any, of our wine- 

 coopers now add sugar to the must; yet our wines, in tight 

 casks and cool cellars, keep sound for years, without any 

 addition. But the casks should be kept full, to guard against 

 accident. 



I corresponded for several years with Mr. M'Call, who 

 cultivated the grape for wine, near Dublin, Georgia. He 

 informed me that he was in the constant habit of adding 

 from 2 to 21 lbs. of sugar to the gallon of must, of the 

 Schuylkill Muscadel (Cape) and Catawba grape; and fre- 

 quently found it insufficient to prevent his wine from running 

 into the acetous fermentation. I know that Mr. Herbemont, 

 of Columbia, South Carolina, was in the habit of adding as 

 much sugar to his must ; yet when his wine was offered for 



