108 



tion between the expansion of the fermenting must, and its subsidence ; 

 and I thought I could deduce from what I saw, that the drawing off 

 should be practised as soon as the film or scum had settled down- 

 wards. I therefore marked degrees on a yard-stick, placed upright 

 in the middle of the vat, and I watched the ascension and fall ; the 

 wine was perfect at the time proposed. But in dry and hot years, 

 when the grape is very ripe and contains more fire than sugar, if the 

 wine is left until the scum has sunk, it is hard, heady, rough and 

 fiery. In rainy years, when the grape is full of water, the wine, at 

 that degree, is not perfect ; in seasons that are dry without being too 

 hot, seasons generally remarkable for the abundance of sugar in the 

 fruit, the moment the retrogression of the head is accomplished, is the 

 exact time for drawing off the wine. 



" With the help of these facts, and knowing that the same princi- 

 ples, mere chemical combinations, were at work to effect the sinking, 

 that accomplished the expulsion and ascent of the chaplet or head, I 

 deemed that the time, be it greater or less, required in the ascent and 

 in the fall were proportioned to each other, and by that, some lights 

 might be given. I therefore tried it, whether, allowing as long an 

 interval from the stagnation of the head, to the drawing off, as htid 

 occurred between the crushing of the fruit and the first degree of sensible 

 ascension, would allow time for the wine to be completed; in cases 

 where it was not finished at the settling of the head. The first year 

 I was completely successful The next the season had been very 

 different; and I was somewhat behind-hand in the wine ; the next 

 season, the wine was a little overdone. As my regulator was not 

 more than an inch thick, and simply thrust into the vat without being 

 firmly fixed, I attributed these different results to some displacing, or 

 my own careless inaccuracy. The next season, I took a piece of 

 poplar plank, 5 inches broad, two thirds of an inch thick, and nearly 

 as long as would reach across the vat. Through the middle of it I 

 passed the yard-stick, fastened down ; ajid the plank, being perfectly 

 flat and extremely light, would work up and down with perfect facility 

 following the swell or decline of the scum. This method was more 

 exact, and I have found it of use for three years past. I intend to 

 perfect it much more ; by combining the strength of the fluid and the 

 heat of the vat with my other calculations, and making the matter so 

 clea,r, that the most unlettered farmer, may seize with half an eye, the 

 proper minute for drawing off, no matter what the previous or attend- 

 ant circumstances " — Such was his statement; but exile and death 

 have prevented him from keeping his word. 



To draw off, the tap of the vat is turned and the liquor removed to 



