WINE MAKING. 451 



a few degrees will give it activity, or, in other 

 words, bring on active fermentation. If a wine 

 poor in sugar and rich in ferment gets stirred 

 up, and the temperature at the same time in- 

 creased, fermentation will be renewed, and soon 

 pass to the acetous state unless checked. In 

 this and similar cases, racking and fining should 

 be resorted to ; and this is also the proper 

 course to pursue with wines that are oily, 

 sticky, or slimy. In. the case of mouldy wines, 

 the mould should be removed, and the wine 

 racked and fined. This is often caused by not 

 keeping the casks well filled. Cloudiness or 

 muddiness may be removed by fining. 



M. Pasteur, however, a distinguished French 

 physiologist, at the instance of the French gov- 

 ernment, has devoted several years to the study 

 of diseases in wine, and has arrived at conclu- 

 sions which must be regarded as of very great 

 importance to the wine-making interests of all 

 countries. These results may strike some of 

 our readers as being quite improbable ; but ex- 

 periments of a somewhat similar kind conduct- 

 ed by others give a great degree of probability 

 to M. Pasteur's theory in regard to wines. "We 

 can not here do more than give an outline of 

 the theory as applied to the diseases of wine, 



