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146 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT 



Mr. Meredith — Vinegar can be bought in the Chicago 

 market anywhere from 4 to 40 cents a gallon; and if they 

 can manufacture good vinegar for that amount of money 

 there must be some quick process. 



Dr. Miller — Pres. York may be well enough satisfied 

 with Mr. Arndt's vinegar, but Mr. Meredith has given the 

 thing necessary — the exposure of the liquid to the air. When 

 you have a barrel with a hole in it and perhans a bottle in 

 that hole, there is no chance for the air to get at any of 

 that except the surface, and the air is coming in slowly; 

 when it passes down through the shavings there is a very 

 much larger surface. Take that barrel of sweetened water — 

 liquid honey — and put in a small quantity. Put it in a 

 shallow dish and that will sour very much quicker. The 

 change will be much more rapid than if it were in a large 

 body with only a small surface exposed. The shavings are 

 the same thing. Every shaving is a surface when wet with 

 that liquid. There would be, probably, in a barrel of shav- 

 ings, I don't know how many square feet; the same amount 

 would be exposed that there is in a great many barrels in the 

 ordinary way, so that the chemical change can go on very 

 rapidly, and that is all there is to it; and I don't see why 

 the rapid change will be any detriment, and why it wouldn't 

 make just as good vinegar one way as the other. 



Mr. Abbott — The Doctor touched a good idea. If you 

 will set out a small dish it will sour, and take that full of 

 microbes and ready to go to work, and the barrel will sour 

 quicker, too, and the microbes get to work. Get enough 

 started and it will work. 



Mr. Duff — And those microbes only get those conditions 

 favorable to growth on account of the temperature. It must 

 be 80 degrees, Fahrenheit. 



Dr. Miller — You cannot sour ice. 



Mr. Duff — You know that. 



Mr. Meredith — A vinegar still, in a cheap form, consists 

 of a barrel — ^you also need a faucet. Fill up one-third full 

 with corn-cobs. Before that there is a hole bored so that 

 the air will pass down, and the liquid from the top would 

 pass down and up without going out. I made mine frdm 

 shavings of basswood, and filled that up to the top. On top 

 of that was set a tub that had a small hole bored through 

 the bottom, with a string. That was the thing. In the 

 center there is a two-inch tube so as to allow a passage of 

 air to go down through these holes in the side of the bar- 

 rel, and then up through this tube, and charging the still 

 was done by saturating the entire corn-cobs and shavings with 

 cheap vinegar. 



Mr. Abbott — I suppose you all know that the cheapest 

 vinegar is not made by fermentation. The white vinegar 

 isn't vinegar really at all. It is made by a chemical process, 

 and is far inferior to ordinary vinegar made in the family, 

 and it is a question whether it is injurious or not to the 

 health. The general opinion, I believe, is that it is, but the 

 manufacturers are forcing it on to you all the time. You 



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