1628 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November 1, 1919 
Fur Prices WA/ UP 
Right now raw furs are bringing tremendous 
prices. To get the benefit of these high 
furs early to 
never knows in 
dictate. Furs at' 
are wearing them 
prices, you should ship your 
Joseph Ullmann, Inc. A person 
these days what the fashion leaders may 
present are all the rage, and while women 
lavishly is the time for you to cash in. 
HONEST GRADING—HIGHEST PRICES 
are absolutely assured when you consign your skins to us. 
grade every skin correctly, so you are sure of always getting 
top market price. We pay exactly the prices quoted in 
guaranteed price list. Positively no commission charged, 
pay express charges and refund postage on mail shipments. 
Illustrated Trapping Folder and Guaranteed Price List Free 
Drop us a postcard or a letter right now and get our Illustrated Trapping 
Folder and Guaranteed Price List. Better write us right away 
JOSEPH ULLMANN, Inc. 
(Established 1854) 
18-20-22 West 20th St.. New York. 
Dept. 80 N Y. 
We 
the 
our 
We 
RAW FURS 
WANTED 
Mr. RAW FUR SHIPPER- 
We want your raw furs. Put your own assortment on them and 
mail us a copy. If we cannot net you more than you expect, we will 
return them to you, express paid. Our price list is yours for the asking. 
Raw Furs 
Milton Schreiber & Co. 
Dept Y ^ - 
138-140 
West iy 
29th Street 
NEW 
YORK 
CITY 
.- .. 
When you write advertisers mention The R. N.-Y. and you ll get a 
1 quick reply and a “square deal.” See guarantee editorial page. 
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Conditions during the Fur Season of 1919-1920 
sl a me_ 
Fost Office. 
County 
(PLEASE PQINT NAME) 
CH Stale 
B 
N? 
ox 
(c) 1919, A.B.S. l 
Simple Science 
By Dr. F. D. Crane 
Corncob Syrup; Waterproofing Card¬ 
board; Cider from Drops 
1. Some time ago you published a recipe 
for making syrup from corncobs which I 
would be glad to have repeated. 2. Have 
you a solution for waterproofing card¬ 
board? 3. How can I make cider from 
drop apples? Is it necessary to crush the 
apples before putting them in the press? 
Is it possible to bottle and sterilize fhe 
juice so it will uot harden? j. J. P. 
Bernardsville, N. J. 
1. The corncob syrup process was 
merely boiling the cobs, taking them out 
and evaporating the liquid to a syrup. 
We tried it on a small scale, and, while a 
syrup was obtained which was fairly 
sweet, the flavor was so peculiar that few 
would care for it. But a good deal prob¬ 
ably depends on the cobs; there might be 
some sorts with more sugar and less taste. 
2. Your cardboard question is too in¬ 
definite, as a lot of things travel under 
that name. In general we suggest the 
use of one of the waterproof varnishes so 
widely advertised. 
3. You can make a sort of cider from 
immature and wormy apples which fall 
from the trees before their time, but it 
will be pretty poor. You must grind or 
crush the apples quite fine before putting 
them in the press, and after you have the 
juice you can bottle or can it and sterilize 
just as you would any other fruit juice. 
Better put your time in on good apples 
and get a first-class cider. 
Hat Poison and Hogs 
After killing some rats with a paste rat 
poison, on biscuits, we put the remaining 
biscuits in the stove and later put the 
ashes in the hog pasture. A few days 
later the hog was found dead in the morn¬ 
ing without beiug the least sick before, or 
showing signs of a struggle. Was it the 
poison or cholera? A. D. 
Howell, Mich. 
If it was a phosphorus poison it would 
have beeu destroyed by the fire; if an ar¬ 
senic poison the arsenic would have stayed 
in the ashes, and might have been injuri¬ 
ous. But arsenic is not a very prompt 
poison, and it seems more likely that the 
hog died of some other trouble. 
Ink from Poke Berries 
How can I make a homemade writing 
ink out of purple ink berries? C. B. 
Point Pleasant. N. J. 
We don’t know just what you mean by 
that fruit, but if it is the poke berry 
which you have in mind, you can squeeze 
out the juice, strain it. add a few drops 
of clove oil to preserve it, and go ahead 
and use it. The colqr is not permanent, 
and we know of no method of making it 
so; if anyone else does we would be glad 
to know the method. 
Making Tar Soap and Milk Chocolate 
How is tar soap made? What is the 
best kind of grease for soap? How is 
pork fat?- How is milk chocolate made? 
NO NAME. 
Tar soap is simply a good soap into 
which a certain amount, usually about 5 
per cent, of oil of tar is either stirred 
while the soap is warm, or worked in me¬ 
chanically after the soap gets cold. Al¬ 
most any sort of clean grease can be made 
into soap; the best is olive oil. Pork fat 
will do very well, but the addition of some 
beef fat will make a better article. 
Milk chocolate can be made by mixing 
dried milk with the chocolate while warm. 
A steam-jacketed kettle and stirring ma¬ 
chinery are needed for good results. 
Cider Questions 
How soon does apple juice ferment to 
cider? Could I make cider in the morn¬ 
ing and sell it the same day? What can 
I use to keep cider sweet? What is 
apple jack, and how is it made? Can 
cider whiskey be made by freezing? 
These are some of the questions which 
are coming in to us nowadays, since there 
is so much talk about the law prohibiting 
alcoholic drinks. At last accounts the 
law, which is to enforce both the war¬ 
time prohibition and amendment prohibi¬ 
tion, after Jan. 1 next, is going to allow 
the production, by the individual owner 
of grapes and apples, but not the sale, 
of whatever wines and ciders that owner 
is willing and able to make. Since all 
apple vinegar must pass through a long 
or short cider stage, and since it is rather 
out of the question to legislate against 
the activity of the yeast plant, there is 
going to be more or lees cider made au.v- 
wav, but there is no doubt that the sale 
of cider, after it becomes alcoholic, is and 
will continue to be illegal. 
The question is, when does it become 
alcoholic? To this there can be no set 
answer; too much depends on a lot of 
variable circumstances. Alcohol can he 
made out of sugar by several organisms, 
but in the case of apples the chief actor 
is some .of "several sorts of yeast. These 
yeast cells are so widely distributed in 
nature that it is out of the question to 
keep them out of the juice; they are on 
the apples and start to work as soon as 
the apples are pressed, or even before in 
the case of over-ripe or bruised fruit. 
With them, also, are a host of bacteria 
and molds, which probably have some¬ 
thing to do with producing the flavor if 
they do not help with the alcohol. But 
at first the activities of the yeast tend 
more to a very little alcohol and a lot of 
carbonic acid gas, so there really is not 
much alcohol in sweet cider, and in a 
very fresh cider from sound apples there 
would probably be at most a trace. 
„ Yeasts, however, are active at ordinary 
Fall temperatures, and can live nearly 
down to freezing, but poorly, and so it 
will not be long before there is some 
alcohol in cider which has been made 
sweet and kept cool. Just how much of 
this must be present before it ceases to 
be salable as “sweet cider” has not yet 
been legally decided. It is said that the 
old rule of half of one per cent is to be 
that of the new law. This is pretty low. 
and it is generally understood that it 
was fixed at this point, in times past, 
not with any .prohibition or temperance 
idea, but simply because that was the 
limit at which it did not pay to distil for 
alcohol. That is, with the best of stills 
it cost more than the product was worth 
to get the alcohol, so the Internal Reve¬ 
nue took no interest in half of one per 
cent or below. 
A half per cent is too low to affect the 
taste, and it can only be determined by 
analysis. It would probably be reached 
in one day of moderately warm weather, 
but it seems unlikely that it would be 
reached by night of the day the cider was 
made unless fermentation was well started 
before the ground apples were pressed, 
which is sometimes the case. It also 
seems improbable that anyone is going to 
try to prevent or prosecute for the sale 
of two or three days’ old cider unless 
there is some other good reason or a 
strong and intolerant local sentiment. 
Here and there we find someone who is 
affected by traces of alcohol, but the 
average person could not hold enough 
three-day cider to get intoxicated. 
Just how soon an intoxicating amount 
of alcohol, say three per cent or more, 
will develop is more than can be told in 
advance, so much would depend on the 
sugar content to begin, and the tempera¬ 
ture. There will probably be some 
analyses this Fall which will give us a 
line on the matter. 
There are a lot of recipes for keeping 
cider sweet, most of which, on examina¬ 
tion,^ turn out to be merely schemes for 
slowing down the usual fermentation. 
There is only one way which is sure to 
work, and that is to sterilize and seal, 
which can be done exactly as any other 
fruit juice is preserved. The weak spot 
in this is that the natural flavor of cider 
is very delicate, and it is injured, if not 
destroyed, by the required heating. Still, 
canned cider is better than no cider at 
all, and it is said that if the can is 
opened a few days before it is to be used 
and a few raisins dropped in, some of the 
flavor will be restored. But this treat¬ 
ment is likely to produce a little alcohol 
also. 
One method which will partly and mav 
wholly sterilize the cider and so keep it 
sweet indefinitely is the addition of a 
quarter of an ounce of sulphite of lime 
to each gallon. The acids of the cider 
set free sulphurous acid, which is a good 
and entirely harmless yeast and germ 
killer, and the cider stays sweet, with 
little change in flavor. The trouble with 
this treatment is that' if any yeast cells 
escape, they will slowly increase and fer¬ 
ment the cider. Take care that you get 
the sulphite, the sulphate has no effect. 
Sulphite of soda may also be used if you 
can get a fresh article. 
Another very good preservative is the 
much cussed anti discussed benzoate of 
soda, one-eighth of an ounce to the gal¬ 
lon, which, in this proportion, and consid¬ 
ering the amount of preserved cider any¬ 
one is likely to take at a time, can pro¬ 
duce only a mental effect, and the sensi¬ 
tive souls who are going to shy at thin 
should surely shun cranberries, which con¬ 
tain fully as much. But the one sure 
preservatice of cider is heat. Can it and 
you are safe, or boil it down till it is too 
thick to ferment any way. 
It is possible that “apple jack” means 
something else othervvheres. hut here in 
New Jersey it signifies the very alcoholic 
liquid obtained by distilling “hard,” that 
is, wholly fermented cider; apple whisky, 
in other words. It is now and probably 
will continue to be out.awed. It is also 
a whisky w hich, on account of the variety 
of more complex alcohols it contains, can 
be depended on for a lasting and usually 
unpleasant intoxication. 
It is true that hard cider, when frozen 
slowly, will form a cake of nearly pure 
ice on the outside and in the center there 
will be a liquid which has all the flavor 
and alcohols in a much smaller bulk. 
This is not a true whisky, hut probably 
has all the intoxicating effect and a much 
better flavor. So far as we know, how¬ 
ever, this product has never been an ar¬ 
ticle of commerce, but rather the spe- 
cialty of a chosen few who were willing 
to take a large load of trouble for a very 
small jag. 
