BALCH, ON NATIVE GRAPES. 141 



fection in quality and ripening throughout the entire year, 

 is being applied to the wild grape, and the results of 

 the few past years are astonishing. The goal of per- 

 fection in this case is still far distant, but we have many 

 good and some excellent varieties ; and the number of 

 these is being yearly augmented, so that it is by no 

 means improbable that many grapes, hitherto popular, will 

 be gradually discarded as others of better quality or habit 

 arise to fill their places : I refer to the Isabella, Catawba, 

 Hartford. <fcc., in all of which there is large room for im- 

 provement. 



To be of value as a table fruit or for wine a grape must 

 contain a sufficient quantity of free acid, and sugar enough 

 to temper, modify or partially disguise this acid, so that 

 the juice shall not be flat and insipid but vinous and spark- 

 ling. In the case of table grapes the minor considera- 

 tions of size, beauty, flavour, thin skin, deficiency of cen- 

 tral pulp, etc., are of great importance, but the first point 

 to be ascertained in a wine grape is the quantity of free 

 acid and saccharine matter it is likely to produce in fav- 

 ourable circumstances. 



To ascertain which (if any) of the native grapes ordi- 

 narily ripening in this vicinity, was best adapted to wine- 

 making, I have this autumn analyzed the fresh must of 

 many varieties. I had also another object in view, viz : 

 to ascertain if the table adapted to Oechsle's must-scale 

 by Gall, from numerous analyses of European musts in 

 1851, '52 and '53, were applicable to the must of our native 

 grapes. 



The method of analysis in all cases was as follows. The 

 grapes were gathered when perfectly dry, pressed and the 

 juice strained through linen. The specific gravity of this 

 clear must was taken by weight in bottle with perforated 

 stopper ; a portion of must was diluted with 50 times its 

 bulk of water and sugar contents ascertained by Fehling's 

 method, (Annalen der Chemie und Pharm., Bd. 72. S. 

 106.) ; this method is very accurate if carefully performed: 

 finally the free acid in a weighed portion was neutralized 

 by a solution of caustic soda of such strength that 1 c. c, 

 equalled .00825 grin, of Tartaric acid (C 8 H 6 12 ). All 

 the free acid in must is not Tartaric, but in calculating 



