358 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
August 14. 
it is rather scarce. Possibly it may be more abundant in I 
some other places, where it is neglected from ignorance of j 
its peculiar property. 
This Polypi is placed in a large vessel filled with fresh 
water, to which a few glasses of spirits are added, and after j 
twenty or thirty days this liquid is found transformed into | 
excellent vinegar, without going through any other process, | 
and without the addition of the smallest ingredient. The 
vinegar is as clear as spring-water, very strong, and of a 
very agreeable taste. After the first transformation the 
source appears inexhaustible; for as it is drawn oft by J 
degrees for consumption, it is only necessary to add an equal 
quantity of pure water, without any more spirit, and the 
vinegar remains equally good. 
The tsou-no dze, like the other Polypi, is easily pro¬ 
pagated by germination; you detach a limb, which vegetates 
and grows, and in a short time is found to possess the 
same property of changing water into vinegar. These 
details are based not only on the best information we have 
been able to collect, but we ourselves possessed one of these 
Polypi, and kept it for a year, using constantly the delicious 
vinegar it distilled for us. At our departure from Thibet, 
we presented it to the Christians of our mission in the 
Valley of Black Waters.”—S. P. Rushmerc. 
(There are many insects which secrete acetic acid, or 
vinegar. Among these acid-secreters are the Bed Ant, and 
the Slimy Grub, which feeds on our Pear leaves. The 
Slimy Grub, when crushed, smells strongly of vinegar. The 
acid secreted by the Formica ruj'a, or Bed Ant, differs some¬ 
what from vinegar, and has been called Formic acid. 
It was first publicly noticed by Mr. Ray in the year 1070.* 
Dr. Hulse had written him that he had found this passage 
in Langham's Garden of Health, “ Cast the flowers of cichory 
(Cichorium Intybus) among a heap of ants, and the flowers 
will soon become as red as blood.” He mentions that the 
fact had been observed before by various individuals, among 
others by John Bauhin. Dr. Hulse said that he had tried 
the experiment and found it to succeed. Mr. Fisher had 
stated to Mr. Bay, several years before, that, “ if you stir a 
heap of ants so as to rouse them, they will let fall on the 
instrument you use a liquor which, if you presently smell to, 
will twinge the nose like newly distilled oil of vitrol.” Mr. 
Fisher farther stated, that, “ when ants are distilled by 
themselves or with water they yield a spirit like spirit of 
vinegar, or rather like spirit of viride wris." It dissolves 
lead and iron. When you put the animals into water, you 
must stir them to make them angry, and then they will 
spirt out their acid juice.” Margraaf obtained this acid in 
1749, by distilling ants mixed with water and recitifying the 
liquid which came over. The acid obtained had a sour 
taste and smell. It combined with potash and ammonia, 
and formed crystallizable salts with both.—E d. C. G.) 
THE VINTAGE AND THE VINTAGERS. 
{Continued from page 283.) 
Or course, it is quite foreign to my plan to enter upon 
anything like a detailed account of wine-making. I may 
only add, that the refuse skins, stalks, and so-forth, which 
settle into the bottom of the fermentation vats, are taken 
out again after the wine has been drawn off and subjected 
to a new squeezing—in a press, however, and not by the 
foot—the products being a small quantity of fiery, ill- 
flavoured wine, full of the bitter taste of the seeds and stalks 
of the grape, and possessing no aroma or bouquet. The 
Bordeaux press for this purpose is rather ingeniously con¬ 
structed. It consists of a sort of a skeleton of a cask, 
strips of daylight shining through from top to bottom be¬ 
tween the staves. In the centre works a strong perpen¬ 
dicular iron screw. The rape, as the refuse of the treading 
| is called, is piled beneath it; the screw is manned capstan 
fashion, and the unhappy seeds, skins, and stalks, undergo a 
most dismal squeezing. Nor do their trials end there. The 
wine-makers are terrible hands for getting at the very last 
get-at-able drop. To this end, somewhat on the principle of 
rinsing an exhausted spirit bottle, so as, as it were, to catch j 
the very flavour still clinging to the glass, they plunge the 
* Phil. Trans, v. 2063, or Abridgement, i. 551. 
doubly-squeezed rape into water, let it lie there for a short 
time, and then attack it with the press again. The result is 
a horrible stuff called piquelt.e, which, in a w'ine country, 
bears the same resemblance to wine as the very dirtiest, 
most wishy-washy, and most contemptible of swipes bears to 
honest porter or ale. Piquette, in fact, may be defined as 
the ghost of wine !—wine minus its bones, its flesh, and its 
soul!—a liquid shadow !—a fluid nothing ! an utter negation 
of all comfortable things and associations ! Nevertheless, 
how r ever, the peasants swill it down in astounding quantities, 
and, apparently, with sufficient satisfaction. 
And now a word as to wine-treading. The process is 
universal in France, with the exception of the cases of the 
sparkling wines of the Rhone and Champagne, the grapes 
for w'hich are squeezed by mechanical means, not by the 
human foot. Now', very venerable and decidedly picturesque 
as is the process of wine-treading, it is unquestionably rather 
a filthy one; and the spectacle of great brown horny feet, 
not a whit too clean, splashing and sprawling in the bub¬ 
bling juice, conveys at first sight a qualmy species of feeling, 
w’hich, however, seems only to be entertained by those to 
whom the sight is new. I looked dreadfully askance at the 
operation when I first came across it; and when I w’as 
invited, by a lady, too, to taste the juice, of which she 
caught up a glassful, a certain uncomfortable feeling of the 
inward man warred terribly against politeness. But nobody 
around seemed to be in the least squeamish. Often and 
often did I see one of the heroes of the tub walk quietly 
over a dunghill, and then jump—barefooted, of course, as he 
was—into the juice ; and even a vigilant proprietor, who was 
particularly careful that no bad grapes w r ent into the tub, 
made no objection. When I asked why a press was not 
used, as more handy, cleaner, and more convenient, I was 
everywhere assured that all efforts had failed to construct a 
wine-press capable of performing the work with the per¬ 
fection attained by the action of the human foot. No 
mechanical squeezing, I w r as informed, would so nicely 
express that pecular proportion of the whole moisture of the 
grape which forms the highest flavoured wine. The manner 
in which the fruit was tossed about was pointed out to me, 
and I was asked to observe that the grapes were, as it were, 
squeezed in every possible fashion and from every possible 
side, worked and churned and mashed hither and thither by 
the ever-moving toes and muscles of the foot. As far as 
auy impurity went, the argument was, that the fermentation 
flung, as scum to the surface, every atom of foreign matter 
held in suspension in the wine, and that the liquid ulti¬ 
mately obtained was as exquisitely pure as if human flesh 
had never touched it. 
In the collection of these and such like particulars, I 
sauntered for days among the vineyards around; and, 
utterly unknown and unfriended as I was, I met everywhere 
the most cordial and pleasant receptions. I would lounge, 
for example, to the door of a wine-treading shed, to watch 
the movements of the people. Presently the proprietor, 
most likely attired in a broad-brimmed straw hat, a strange 
faded outer garment, half shooting-coat half dressing-gown, 
would come up courteously to the stranger, and, learning 
that I was an English visitor to the vintage, would busy 
himself with the most graceful kindness, to make intelligible 
the rationale of all the operations. Often I was invited into 
the chateau or farm-house, as the case might be ; a bottle 
of an old vintage produced and comfortably discussed in the 
coolness of the darkened, thinly-furnished room, with its 
old-fashioned walnut-tree escrutoires, and beauffets; its 
quaintly-panelled walls, and its polished floors, gleaming 
like mirrors and slippery as ice. On these occasions, the 
conversation would often turn upon the general rejection,by- 
England, of French wines—a sore point with the growers 
of all save the first-class vintages, and in which I had, as 
may be conceived, very little to say in defence either of our 
taste or our policy. In the evenings, which were getting 
chill and cold, I occasionally abandoned my room with illus¬ 
trations from the Tour de Neste for the general kitchen and 
parlour of Madame Cadillac, and, ensconcing myself in the 
chimney-corner—a fine old-fashioned ingle, crackling and 
blazing with hard wood logs—listened to the chat of the 
people of the village ; they were nearly all coopers and vine¬ 
dressers, who resorted there after the day’s work was over, 
to enjoy an exceedingly modest modicum of very thin wine. 
