AGRICULTURAL ALCOHOL IN GERMANY. 19 
waste products on the farm. Such a use of small stills is regarded 
as financially impracticable even in countries like France and Ger- 
many, where the peasants have long since learnéd to live most eco- 
nomically and do not allow anything to go to waste. 
There are, however, a number of small stills in Germany—large 
when compared with those just mentioned, but small when compared 
with the smallest distillery regarded as representing the minimum 
practical efliciency—which utilize potatoes and cereals for the pro- 
duction of alcohol as such and are maintained in large part for the 
purpose of supplying spent waste as forage for cows. 
Several of these distilleries are still found in southern Germany. 
With the abolition of bondage during the early part of the nineteenth 
century, many of the peasants became small individual farmers. In 
parts of Bavaria, for example, the division of the larger tracts, both 
municipal and private, into diminutive farms resulted in the decima- 
tion of cattle because each farmer desired to cultivate as much of his 
land as possible. The result was that the land, no longer properly 
fertilized with stable manure, became more or less exhausted. To 
counteract this tendency, the cultivation of potatoes was stimulated 
by the installation of the so-called Pistorius distilling apparatus. 
Of these stills, mounted near the middle of the nineteenth century, 
some may yet be seen in.operation. However, they are rapidly giving 
way to larger continuous stills and to a more rational mode of oper- 
ation through cooperative means. In the village of Perlach, near 
Munich, where about 15 years ago there were 35 of these stills, but 4 
were in operation at the beginning of the season 1907-8, and one of 
these was abandoned in December, 1907, the owner having purchased 
an interest in the local cooperative distillery. 
Not only are these distilleries hampered in their operation because 
of their small size, but they are not continuous apparatus and hence 
involve considerable loss of time in charging (which is done with the 
aid of a bucket instead of a pump) and heating. Moreover, the men 
who operate these stills, although they may have had years of ex- 
perience, have not, as a rule, a technical training. Naturally they 
can not undertake the production of the necessary yeast; hence, this 
must be obtained from the nearest brewery. This involves not only 
a loss of time, but it frequently means poor yeast and consequently 
poor fermentation. Evenif the farmer be a man of somewhat greater 
intelligence than his distiller, he does not compute profit and loss 
and either he is satisfied to receive a certain amount of food daily 
for his stock and to receive money at regular intervals for his alcohol, 
or he listens to the agricultural lectures and abandons individual 
operation. The latter course, as already indicated, has become so 
common of late that there now remain but relatively few of these 
