1840.] SENATE— No. 36. 189 



is in its perfection. Every thing favors vinous fermentation. The 

 sugar and starch of the plant fermented by its gluten and albumen, are 

 converted into gases and alcohol, the former are lost in air, the last, 

 washes away or is changed to vinegar. All that remains for the farmer 

 is the altered gluten and albumen, which soon putrefy and form geine. 

 All the starch and sugar of the plant are thus lost. 



2d. What vegetable substances are susceptible of the acid fermenta- 

 tion, and what are its products 1 



The substances are, first, sugar, which, in certain cases, becomes 

 acid, without undergoing vinous fermentation ; second, gum. The 

 circumstances essential to acid fermentation are air, moisture, and a 

 temperature from 65° to 70° F. ; acetic acid is itself the proper fer- 

 ment of acid fermentation. Vinegar, as is well known, singularly pro- 

 motes the formation of vinegar in vinous liquors. The products are; 

 carbonic acid, acetic acid or vinegar, and some other acids, especially that 

 called nanceic or zumic acid, which if not lactic, is perhaps only ace- 

 tic acid, holding in combination, some azotized substance. This 

 acid combines with the alkaline and earthy ingredients of plants and 

 soils, and forms very soluble salts. Green plants, ploughed in, are at 

 once placed in a situation most favorable for undergoing acid fermen- 

 tation. We suffer a loss of a part of the carbon, and in addition to 

 the sugar and starch, we now lose the gum of the plants. All these 

 are capable of producing geine, and hence in ploughing in green 

 crops, we lose a portion of manure. 



3d. What are the vegetable substances susceptible of putrefaction, 

 and what are its products? 



With the exception of oils, resins, 6lc., every organized part of 

 every vegetable may putrefy. The circumstances essential to this pro- 

 cess, are air, a temperature not below 45°, and moisture. No perfect- 

 ly dry plant ever putrefies, nor will a moist one, if air is excluded. 1 

 have had a capital example of the last, in a piece of a white birch tree, 

 dug up from a depth of twenty-five feet below the surface in Lowell, 

 this winter. It must have been inhumed there probably before the crea- 

 tion of man, at least at a time " whereof the memory of man runneth not 

 to the contrary," yet this most perishable of all wood is nearly as sound 

 as if cut from the forest last fall. A dried plant has parted with most 

 of its sap, thr.t moisture, essential to the commencement of vinous and 

 acetous fermentation. During the very act of decay, from the moment 

 when its living functions have ceased, new combinations of its ele- 

 ments begin. It has already begun to be destroyed by the very agents 



