42 OILy CIDER. 

in cask, which is generally filtered only after the specific 
gravity has fallen to 1:o10o. It has been observed at But- 
leigh that when the same cider has been partly bottled and 
partly left in cask, that in bottle has been distinctly oily, 
while that in the cask has remained free from this defect. 
Oiliness was observed for the first time in the cider at 
Butleigh in July last, and Mr. F. J. Lloyd undertook some 
experiments with a view to discover the cause as well as 
a remedy. What is known as oily or viscous wine was 
found by Pasteur to be due to a bacterium termed a “ strep- 
tococcus,’ because it consists of little spheres having the 
habit of growing in chains. But no analogous bacterium 
has been found by Mr. Lloyd, even after the most careful 
examination of many samples of oily cider, and he believes 
that in cider the change is due to the action of some other 
organism, viz., a bacillus which was found in every sample 
he examined. That the oiliness is caused by some living 
organism is shown by the fact that a bottle of good cider 
into which sediment from a bottle of oily cider had been 
placed became oily within two months. And in this connec- 
tion Mr. Lloyd points out how necessary it is to remove tainted 
liquid from tke cider house, to completely destroy that living 
bacterial matter which, in the form of a sediment in bottle 
or cask, may, if disseminated, cause a veritable epidemic of 
the complaint to which it can give rise. The nature of the 
organism will be the subject of further inquiry. Careful 
investigations were made to discover how the germ gets into 
the cider, but with no very definite result. The only possible 
explanation left open is that the trouble is due either to 
the contamination of the fruit itself, or of the water which 
is used for washing the bottles and barrels at Butleigh, 
though, as this water comes, from good springs, it is hardly 
possible. But there are, it seems, many facts which it is 
difficult to account for by this assumption; as, for example, 
why in such cases all the cider was not oily. 
The final problem was to discover, if possible, a remedy. 
Bottles of cider were stored with a view to prove whether, as 
some makers state, the oily characteristic disappears natu- 
rally in course of time. An experiment was also under- 
