176 
Preservation of Grape Juice—Slieep on tlie Prairies. 
example for our comfort-providing house¬ 
wives. Horace too, the dissipated pander to 
a luxurious and vitiated taste, steeped in all 
the vices of a dissolute court, advises— 
(c With lenient leverage fill your empty veins, 
For lenient must will better cleanse the veins.” 
Juvenal, among the last of the great wits 
of depraved Rome, recommends the plentiful 
use of new must , as promoting longevity ; 
and Virgil in many instances refers to it, 
only one example of which we give—- 
6( Or of sweet must boils down the luscious grape ; 
And skims with leaves the trembling cauldron’s flood.” 
He also advises giving wine to bees, as do 
also many of the best old English writers on 
agriculture, and we need not be told, that 
bees were always too strictly a temperate 
community, to admit their using aught of 
the product of the grape but such as was un¬ 
fermented. Columella gives particular direc¬ 
tions for its preparation, as does also Pliny 
and some others among the ancients. Mr. 
Brown, an eminent traveller in the East 
during the latter part of the last century, 
says, “The wines of Syria are most of them 
prepared by boiling immediately after they 
are expressed from the grape, till they are 
considerably reduced in quantity, when they 
are put into jars or glass bottles, and preserved 
for use.” 
That fermented wine was used to some 
extent by almost all the nations of antiquity, 
there is no reason to doubt, as Noah became 
intoxicated from its use, and Moses refers to 
the Pagan sacrificial wine, in colors too true 
of much of that of the present day, to admit 
of its being other than fermented: “ Their 
wine was the poison of dragons , and the 
cruel venom of asps” The evidence for the 
existence of both is abundant, but our object 
is only to show, that at least a large portion 
of what is referred to as wine , was what is 
now termed must , and that by returning to 
this wholesome and innocent beverage, we 
are only going back to the simplicity and 
wisdom of antiquity; and with the few ob¬ 
servations which follow on its preparation, we 
must close this hasty article. 
As soon as the grape is fully ripe, press 
out the juice and boil immediately, till it 
stands at 32 Q of Beaume’s saccharometer,* at 
a temperature of the liquid of 60° Fahrenheit. 
When the juice is very light, (weak,) boil till 
it marks 20° Beaume, and then add treble- 
refined loaf sugar, till the saccharomeier 
stands at 32°. Any impurity in the sugar 
tends to fermentation and decomposition, 
and of course only the best refined should be 
used. The rationale of this process will be 
easily understood from the fact, that a fluid 
mass of wine containing 10 percent, of alcohol, 
has only to be reduced by boiling 10 per 
cent, of its bulk, to be sure of expelling every 
portion of alcohol 5 it being the most volatile 
portion of the liquid, and thus escaping first 
before any portion of the remainder of the 
fluid is exhausted. Those who cannot boil 
it at the time of expressing the juice, may 
allow it to ferment and form a portion of 
alcohol, which by the above process may be 
expelled afterwards. But as a portion of the 
sugar of the juice, has, by this operation been 
converted into alcohol, it is necessary to 
restore it as above described, by the addition 
of sugar. In this way wine imported from 
abroad, and kept for any number of years, 
may be freed from alcohol, and be made ac¬ 
ceptable to the most strictly temperate. Of 
course the most economical method is to 
raise the grapes, and prepare the must as 
soon as ripe. 
Sheep on the Western Prairies. 
We have received a communication from 
Jas. Murray, Esq., of Buffalo, on the subject 
of keeping sheep on the prairies of the 
Little Vermillion river, La Salle county, 
Illinois, where his farm is situated. 
He purchased 1,700 sheep in Ohio and Indi¬ 
ana at 75 cts. to $1 per head. He chose 
those of the black-faced breed, because he 
thought them most hardy, they having a 
strong resemblance to the Cheviots of Scot¬ 
land. They are managed by two Scotch 
shepherds, with the assistance of three colley 
sheep dogs. They are taken on to the 
prairies by dogs, and folded every night in 
an enclosure of ten acres, protected by a 
high picket fence; in this way he has never 
lost one from the wolves. The cost of the 
pasture is trifling, the board and wages of 
his shepherds $16 per month. One ton of 
hay will winter five sheep with the assistance 
of a few oats or corn to keep them in heart. 
It costs about $2 per ton to cut and stack 
the hay. He uses one barrel of salt per 
month, and the sheep have ever been per¬ 
fectly healthy. He lost six only last year 
from rattle-snakes, and these were in Aug. 
and Sept, at which time the snakes become 
partially blind, and cannot avoid the sheep; 
and if trod upon, they turn and bite them. 
We would suggest, if hogs were allowed to 
run with the sheep, they would destroy the 
snakes without injuring themselves, ancl the 
Chinese breed, or smallest and most compact 
Berkshires, would keep in good order on 
* Au instrument to be had in this city. 
