B38 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR 
are preserved from the extremes of cold in winter and heat 
m summer. 
CHAMPAGNE, 
While the wine is in a state of fermentation, about the 
fifteenth or seventeenth day after it is put in the stand — 
and all things being ready, bottles, velvet corks compress- 
ed and fitted to each bottle, twine and wire cut to the pro- 
per length, then put a wine glass full of what in France 
is called “liqueur,” (composed of rock sugar candy and 
good old wine well refined,) into each bottle, and having 
a sizeable funnel covered with flannel to strain the wine, 
•ne person pours the wine and fills the bottles to within 
Iwo inches of the mouth — then another person takes the 
bottles and puts on the corks and after two or three dozen, 
•r a sufficient quantity of bottles are filled, the corks 
Bust be driven in tight, leaving about half an inch of the 
eorks out, then tie on the twine and wire to the corks. 
The bottles may be cemented the next day, covering the 
cork all over— then lay the bottles on their sides in a cool 
cellar. By this mode, champaigne for domestic use is 
made; it will be fit for use about Christmas, and will 
leeptill spring, and sometimes for twelve months. 
Champagne intended for export, or keeping a long time 
is manufactured by a very different process, which is tedi- 
•us and expensive, and requiring much knowledge and 
practice as follows : 
Wine intended for champagne, after going through the 
fermentation is bunged up tight and fined to as great a 
degree of brightness as can be obtained, and so kept till 
the following spring. In the month of March, about the 
time the grape vines begin to put out, bottle the wine, and 
when in bottles a second fermentation is induced by put- 
ting into each bottle a glass of what is called in France 
•‘Mqueur,” (composed of rock sugar candy and good old 
wine, either red or white, as may be desired to produce 
pink or white champagne. This liqueur is produced by 
putting into a bottle one-fourth candy and three fourths 
wine, when the candy is dissolved, strain the wine so as 
H have it perfectly bright.) This second fermentation pro 
duces a fresh deposit of sediment or lees, however bright 
ike wine may be when bottled. In this process the great- 
est attention is necessary, and the bottles are closely 
watched, the temperature of the weather being carefully re- 
gulated, to promote or check fermentation ; yet thousands 
•f bottles explode, so that at least ten per cent, is charged 
sa a cost of manufacture ; in seasons of great and sudden 
tieat, 20 or 25 per cent, are broken. 
When the wine, after clouding with fermentation, be- 
gins to deposit a sediment, bottles are placed, with the 
uecks downward, in long beds or shelves, having holes 
•bliquely cut in them so that the bottoms are merely 
vaised. Every day a man lifts the ends to each bottle 
sad after a slight vibration, replaces it and little more up- 
right in the hole ; thus detaching the sediment from the 
side, and letting it pass towards the neck of the bottle 
This is done for some time, until the bottle is placed quite 
Upright, and the sediment is entirely deposited in the neck 
•f the bottle, which is then ready for disgorging. In this 
process, a man holds the bottle stendily, with the mouth 
downwards, before a recess prepared for the operation ; 
•nts the wire when the internal force drives out the cork, 
and with it the foul sediment. Another cork is ready to 
replace that blown out, the bottle is filled from the same 
previously purified wine, and again stacked A second 
disgorgement is always necessary, and sometimes a third 
If the original wine is made without sugar, then loaf 
sugar must be added at the last operation suitable to 'the 
teste. It may lie observed, that in the last operation tlv 
eork should be well compressed, before they are driven 
into the botiles, then tied, wired and cemenied or sealed 
Chan)pagne must be manufactured in cellars properl\ 
aoade for the purpose. Any grape will rnalte champaj-ni 
but the Scuppernung is preferred to any other. 
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AS TO MANURES. 
Throughout the granite region of middle Georgia, and 
other similar geological formations — salt and lime in the 
proportions previously indicated should be incorporated 
into compost manures for the vine. In lower Georgia^ 
including the tertiary formation of the Pliocene, older and 
newer Miocene and Eocene periods, neither salt nor lime 
are needful to enter into the composition of manures. 
In the upper or northern section of Georgia where the 
blue lime stone occurs, there is no need of lime entering 
into a compost manure — salt may be useful. Stable ma- 
nure, well decomposed, having been kept under shelter 
and pulverized, may be added in small quantities say ten 
percent, and applied on cold damp localities. Guano is 
considered altogether too forcing for the vine. D. P. 
Mount Zion^ Ga., 1857. 
SAIiT — ITS USES AND MANUFACTURE. 
Dr. Lee, — Dear Sir : — I address you, as one of the Edi- 
tors of the Southern Cultivator, to be sure and bring be- 
fore you the subject matter of this letter. 
I take DeBow s Review, and in that, (like your valuable 
periodical,) I find many pieces, worth the year’s subscrip- 
tion. In the August number, I find in the second article & 
Salt, its Uses and Manufacture, cfc., by Wtw. 
C. Dennis of Florida, which 1 consider very important to 
our people. 
Now, if half that is said, in that piece, is true: and I 
must think it is ; for I have long since been dissatisfied 
with the use of the great bulk of Liverpool salt, as im- 
ported, and in use with us, having with my greatest pains 
failed in saving sweet bacon, <^c., <^c., with it. 
Therefore, will you not make copious extracts from it^ 
in your next Cultivator ; if you do not publish the whole ; 
that our people may open their eyes, as to the important 
article of salt., they are using. Thus bring the attention 
of some of Chstrleston, South Carolina, or Augusta Mer- 
chants, to the necessity of importing, or supplying those 
who wish to make the change with some of those salts^ 
which the author of that piece recommends. Let him 
give the assurance, he has that pure Solar Salt, so much 
recommended. 
I do not know that you could do your agricultural and 
farming friends, a better service, than thvowingthe lights, 
about good and bad salt, in saving their bacon, beef, but- 
ter, &c., &c., before them. It strikes me, this is peculiarly 
befitting the pages of your journal. 
Yours truly, John Cunningham. 
Greensboro, Ga., Aug., 1857. 
Salt being an article of universal consumption, it de- 
serves our best attention ; and without copying the. length- 
ened paper referred to by our esteemed correspondent, we 
will endeavor to place its material facts before the reader® 
of the Cultivator. 
The author of the essay in question, is, apparently, en- 
gaged in the production of salt by solar evaporation at 
Key West, and labors to make oat a strong case against 
the use of bo-iled salt for curing meat, salting butter, and 
other domestic purposes. According to the authorities 
quoted, there is consumed in the United States twenty- 
one million bushels of salt a year, of which, seventee* 
mil'ions are boiled, and four millions made by solar evapo- 
ration As a genera) thing, there can be no douht, that 
FInridfi and West India salt, which is madeliy S‘i! ir fteat, 
is purer and hetler than Liverpool, New York, e.r Virginia 
salt made in boilers or pans; but there i.s good leason for 
believing that, when properly manufactured, the latter 
kind is unobjectionable. 
