from an Agricultural and Veterinary Point of View. 61 
larger members of the vegetable kingdom, it must have its appro- 
priate aliment, and wine offers this in abundance, in the form of 
nitrogenous matters and phosphates of magnesia and potash. 
To make vinegar from wine, all that is needed is to mix it 
with one-fourth of its volume of vinegar, and sow on its surface 
a few seeds of the fungus, which is done by transferring a little 
of the mycodermic film from a liquid covered with it. If it 
be summer, or if the room be heated (for it thrives best in the 
warmth), in at most forty-eight hours the whole liquid is covered 
by it, and after some days the alcohol has become acetic acid. 
Pasteur, wishing to give an idea of the prodigious activity and 
prolificacy of the little organism, stated during a discussion at 
the Academy of Sciences, that he would undertake in twenty- 
four hours to cover with it a surface of vinous liquid as large 
as the hall in which they were assembled, having the previous 
day sown in it the almost invisible particles of newly-formed 
Fig. 4. — Saccliaromijces Mijcoderma, or Mycoderma Vini. 
From au artificial cultivation of dilute floarishing matei i.l. 
d. Branched mycelium. fa. Tornla stage. / p. Mycelial stage, 
(After Grawitz.) 
Mycoderma aceti. Millions upon millions of the organism spring 
into existence in twenty-four hours. Nothing is more simple than 
to obtain it in the first instance, it being one of those so-called 
" spontaneous " productions which are almost certain to appear 
on liquids or infusions which contain its necessary food. It is 
present in the air of towns and buildings, and in wine, vinegar, 
and otber fluids ; and if it is desired to procure some of the my- 
coderma, it is only necessary to place a mixture of wine and 
vinegar in a warm place, when in a few days there will appear 
