432 On the Cultivation of the Cine, 
the lees, and to mix them strongly, that the wine may 
again acquire that movement of fermentation which is ne- 
cessary to bring it to perfection. 
We are told by Miller that when Spanish wine be- 
comes turbid by the lees, it may be clarified by the follow 
ing process : Put the whites of eggs, gray salt, and salt 
water, into a convenient vessel ; skim off the foam form- 
ed at the surface, and pour the composition into the wine 
cask from which a part of the liquor has been drawn off : 
at the end of two or three days the liquor becomes clear, 
and acquires an agreeable taste. After being suffered to 
remain at rest for about a week, it is then drawn t)ff. 
To revive claret injured by floating lees, two pounds 
of calcined flints, well pounded, ten or twelve eggs, and 
a large handful of salt, are beat up with two gallons of 
wine, which are then poured into the cask : two or three 
days after, the wine is drawn off. 
These compositions may be varied without end : some- 
times starch is employed, and also rice, milk, and other 
substances, more or less capable of developing the prin- 
ciples which render the wine turbid. 
Wine is clarified also, and its bad taste is often cor- 
rected, by making it digest over shavings of beech wood, 
previously stripped of the bark, boiled in water, and dried 
in the sun or in a stove : a quarter of a bushel of these 
shavings will be sufficient for a mulct of wine. They 
produce a slight movement of fermentation in the liquor, 
which becomes clear in the course of twenty-four hours. 
The art of cutting wines (couper du vin), as it is call- 
ed, (correcting one wine by another — giving a body to 
those wines which are weak — -colour to those destitute 
of it — and an agreeable flavour to those which have none, 
or which have a bad one,) cannot be described. In these 
cases, the taste, sight, and smell must be consulted. The 
highly variable nature of the substances employed must 
be studied : and it will be sufficient for us to observe, 
