100(1. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
487 
THE MANUFACTURE OF ALCOHOL 
Future Possibilities of the Denatured Product. 
It is a hopeful sign for the progress of our country 
that the agricultural population is taking an interest 
in National legislation. This interest has been especi¬ 
ally manifested in the bills which arc pending before 
Congress providing for the use of denatured alcohol 
free of tax in the arts and in the regulations of the 
interstate and foreign commerce in the adulteration and 
misbranding of foods and drugs. 1 he question of the 
manufacture of alcohol free of tax is one which is 
closely related to the prosperity of American agricul¬ 
ture. The great question, of course, is so to denature 
alcohol as to make it impossible for use as a beverage. 
The pending bill provides that the methods of denatur¬ 
ing and the regulations governing it shall be determined 
by the Secretary of the Treasury. We cannot tell, 
therefore, until the bill becomes a law what these regu¬ 
lations are to be, nor what the conditions of manufac¬ 
ture and sale are to be. I think it advisable, however, 
at once to warn our farmers that it will hardly prove 
profitable to undertake to manufacture alcohol in a 
small way upon the farm. No difference how small 
the quantity of alcohol may be. it cannot be manufac¬ 
tured except under the supervision of a revenue offi¬ 
cial, and the manufacturer must pay the salary and 
expenses of this official; at least, it is likely that he 
will be required to do so under the regulations. Thus, 
in the future the manufacture of alcohol, as at the 
present, will probably be conducted in large 
establishments. The principle involved is ex¬ 
actly the same as that employed in the manu¬ 
facture of beet sugar, which, it is found, is 
impracticable in a small way. Central fac¬ 
tories are necessary for the success of the 
sugar industry, and central distilleries will be 
necessary in the alcohol industry. 
The methods of manufacturing alcohol from 
Indian corn are well known, and it is not 
necessary to describe them here. Practically 
all of tlie alcohol made in the United States 
at the present time is made from Indian corn. 
1 may say that malt is used almost universally 
for converting the starch of the Indian corn 
into sugar, although this can also be accom¬ 
plished by chemical means, viz., by heating 
the starch with a dilute acid, such as sulphuric 
or hydrochloric acid preferably under pres¬ 
sure of steam. The most abundant source of 
alcohol after Indian corn is probably the po¬ 
tato, either the ordinary white, the sweet, or 
the yam. This is a crop grown in great 
abundance in almost all parts of the United 
States, while in some localities especially fa¬ 
vorable conditions are obtained for the growth 
of the potato, for instance, in the northern 
part of Maine, in Colorado and many other 
places. The imperfect, broken, or bruised 
potatoes can be very profitably used for alco¬ 
hol making where the sound and well-formed 
potatoes would bring more money by direct 
sale. In the making of alcohol from the 
potato, it is not necessary first to separate 
the starch. The whole potato can be reduced 
to a fine pulp, mixed with water, and the 
starch converted into sugar by malt or by 
heating with an acid as above described. After 
the conversion of the starch into sugar, fer¬ 
mentation takes place. The fermentation is 
usually conducted in large wooden vats of a 
size corresponding to the magnitude of the 
distillery. When once started, fermentation goes on 
with great vigor and is usually completed within 48 
to 72 hours. The process is conducted exactly as in 
the manufacture of alcohol from Indian corn. In 
making pure alcohol, distillation takes place in what 
is called a patent still, which is a long cylindrical col¬ 
umn divided into many partitions or chambers. 'I he 
fermented material is filtered so as to remove solid 
matter, and the alcohol passed into the stills, where 
it descends from chamber to chamber against a column 
of steam which carries the more volatile portions up¬ 
ward toward the top of the still from chamber ;.o 
chamber. In this way alcohol is finally entirely sep¬ 
arated from the water, which is drawn off from the 
bottom of the still. Usually the distillation is con¬ 
ducted in two processes. The product of the first 
distillation contains a considerable quantity of water, 
and is known as low wines. The low wines arc sub¬ 
jected to a second distillation and to a rectifying 
process by means of which nearly all of the water is 
removed and practically all of the other volatile con¬ 
stituents of the low wines except the pure alcohol. In 
this way the alcohol is concentrated into a pure spirit 
containing 95 per cent pure alcohol and five per cent 
water. It is in this form that alcohol is suited for 
use in the arts. For denaturing alcohol, that is. making 
it unfit for drinking, the addition of from three to 
eight per cent of crude wood alcohol is very efficient. 
This produces a spirit known as methylated spirit. To 
make the concoction still more bitter, there is often 
added a chemical compound known as pyridine, which 
dissolves readily in alcohol and imparts to it an in¬ 
tensely bitter and unpalatable taste. For many pur¬ 
poses alcohol denatured in this way can be used with 
great advantage; for instance, for burning, heating, 
illumination, in the manufacture of resins, varnishes, 
etc. For making some products it would not be suit¬ 
able. for it would impart to them a bitter taste, as in 
the manufacture of medicines. For this purpose pure 
alcohol only could be used; likewise in the manufac¬ 
ture of sulphuric ether, denatured alcohol would not 
be suitable. But for most of the great technical pur¬ 
poses to which alcohol is to be devoted, denatured 
alcohol is entirely satisfactory. For instance, it could 
be used to drive motors, automobiles, engines, for 
heating, and with the use of an incandescent mantel, 
for illuminating purposes in apparatus properly con¬ 
structed. 
I should strongly advise the farmers of this coun¬ 
try not to undertake the manufacture of alcohol. To 
do this successfully requires a thorough knowledge of 
the chemistry of the process and a high degree of 
technical skill. The successful practice of the future 
will consist in the establishment of central distilleries 
in a good locality accessible to the farmers. In these 
distilleries alcohol can be most economically made from 
the raw materials which the farmers may furnish. 
Chemist Department of Agriculture. H. w. wtt.f.y. 
SHIRLEY POPPIES. MUCH REDUCED IN SIZE. Fig. 198 . 
See Rurallsms, Page 490. 
WHAT AILS THESE STRAWBERRIES? 
A Case of Overfeeding. 
I am fruiting this year seven varieties, as follows: Texas, 
Climax, Aug. I.uther, Senator Dunlap, Aroma, New York 
and Klondyke. Texas and Climax were the first to ripen. 
After picking these two varieties for six or eight days 1 
noticed the berries had a very had flavor; in fact, they were 
unfit for use. After investigating I found the shuck or 
calyx was dead, or in a withered condition, on all berries 
of any size, which caused them to ripen prematurely. The 
late varieties were pedigree plants from a far northern State, 
and were worse affected than the early kinds, as they never 
ripened a berry. The soil is light gray, with lots of sand, 
and a porous yellow clay, and seems peculiarly adapted to 
growing strawberries. Fertilizer used was cotton-seed meal 
and acid phosphate at the rate of 1,000 pounds per acre. 
This was applied in two doses Spring and Fall. The foliage 
seems to be all right, and the berries just piled up in 
windrows. It is serious to (he grower to see this mass of 
berries ruined. My observation leads me to believe the dis¬ 
ease is blight, and that cotton-seed meal was the cause. 
My neighbors’ berries are not affected as mine. My experi¬ 
ence with cotton-seed meal is that it produces blight, rust, 
etc., more than any other fertilizer I ever used, or rather 
helps to. What is the matter with my strawberries, the 
cause, the remedy? 
Arkansas. a. b. c. 
In my judgment the trouble is undoubtedly in the 
use of too much cotton-seed meal and fertilizer. An 
excess of nitrogen promotes vigorous plant growth at 
the expense of fruit production, and if used in such 
quantities as 1,000 pounds cotton-seed meal per acre 
might very well cause the trouble described. The “dis¬ 
ease’’ is not what is ordinarily ca led blight; it is 
simply an abnormal condition of the plants due to over¬ 
feeding; with fertilizers, as with many other things, it 
is not wise to adopt the principle that “if a little is 
good, more is better.” The first problem in fertilizing 
is always to find out what and how much is needed. No 
large amount of land should be fertilized until it has 
been determined what is required. Soils differ in their 
requirements quite as much as do crops, and unless a 
fertilizer has been tried on your own farm or in your 
immediate neighborhood it is not safe on a large scale. 
The kind of fertilizer used was probably all right; th* 
trouble being with the amount. It would be well to 
try a little of a potash fertilizer at the same time you 
experiment with acid phosphate and cotton-seed meal, 
to determine if the soil needs potash. As a practical 
and satisfactory experiment I would suggest 10 plots, 
two rods square, with about four feet between the plots. 
Each of these is one-fortieth of an acre. When treated 
with 2'/j pounds of fertilizer it will correspond with 
one acre with 100 pounds of the fertilizer, per acre. 
The plots are numbered and treated in the following 
manner: No. 1 is check, not treated; No. 2 is given 100 
pounds acid phosphate per acre; No. .1 is check, not 
treated ; No. 4 is given 100 pounds each of acid phosphate 
and cotton-seed meal per acre ; No. 5, 300 pounds each of 
acid phosphate and cotton-seed meal per acre; No. 0 
is check, not treated; No. 7 is given 100 pounds per 
acre of a potash salt; No. 8 is check, not treated; No. 
9 is given 100 pounds each of potash salt, acid 
phosphate and cotton-seed meal per acre; No. 
10 is given .300 pounds each of all three per 
acre. Apply as desired and closely note re¬ 
sults. It wall then be easy to determine which 
is best for your berries. The land required 
in this experiment is only a trifle more than 
a quarter of an acre, inexpensive, and the 
entire crop is not placed in jeopardy. In this 
experiment if the higher values give the best 
results throughout it might be well to repeat 
the experiment with higher values all around; 
in the meantime, the main field can be treated 
in accordance with what you have learned 
from this experiment. During the first experi¬ 
ment the main field should be given the treat¬ 
ment that has been found to stlcceed best in 
your neighborhood. Anything else must nec¬ 
essarily be more or less uncertain as to re¬ 
sults. This is the conservative and only safe 
way of solving the fertilizer problem. Any 
advice you may get from others is not so safe 
as what you yourself have found to be safe. 
I might add a few general suggestions which 
should be taken cautiously just as any other 
advice: first, the best time to fertilize straw¬ 
berries is on the crop that just precedes them; 
in other words, have the soil in good condition 
before planting. Then 100 pounds cotton-seed 
meal per acre applied early in the Spring be¬ 
fore the fruit sets will be all that is necessary; 
cotton-seed meal is an excellent cattle feed, 
and three-quarters of its cost can be regained 
in production of meat, and nearly all of its 
fertilizing value regained in the manure. By 
feeding cotton-seed meal to cattle, carefully 
saving the manure under shelter, and applying 
it to the land, the cost would only be about 
$5 per acre instead of $20 for the amount of 
fertilizer in one ton of cotton-seed meal. I 
would suggest that you cu'tivate your berries 
4 
well after the crop is off, apply no more fer¬ 
tilizer, and see if next year’s crop is not a productive 
one. W. G. VINCEN HELLER. 
Arkansas Experiment Station. 
CARBOLIC SHEEP DIP. 
Will you give recipe for sheep dip, carbolic preferred, and 
will it kill the eggs of insects? a. l. b. 
Berlin, Mass. 
I would advise no one to attempt to make the ‘‘sheep 
dip” to destroy ticks and the ordinary insects that infest 
the sheep. If they have scab it might perhaps pay to 
make the lime and sulphur dip, such as we use for San 
Jose scale. For several years I have used “Zenoleum,” 
a carbolic dip. Burch’s and Little’s dips are good. They 
cost only about $1.50 per gallon, and for ticks are dilut¬ 
ed 100 times. Any druggist will get them if they are 
not kept by the local dea’ers. They are non-poisonous 
and really have a stimulating effect on the skin and 
wool. They should be used with water that is soft and 
slightly warm. Usually they destroy the eggs as well 
as the insects. In very bad cases it may be wise to 
dip twice. e. van alstyne. 
Some farmers in Colorado are experimenting with feed¬ 
ing sugar beets and Alfalfa hay for fattening sheep. They 
claim good results from these foods without grain. In 
several cases milkmen have kept up the flow of milk by 
feeding silage and Alfalfa hay. We do not begin to realize 
the value of Alfalfa. 
