64  PRESERVATION  OF  GRAPES  AND  OTHER  ERUPTS. 
grammes,  representing  fixed  acids,  little  or  not  at  all  known 
(see  M.  Maumene"s  work,  p.  104).  To  this  amount  must  be 
further  added  the  weight  of  acids  combined  with  the  bases  con- 
tained in  the  wine.  These  facts  indicate  the  need  of  further  re- 
searches in  the  study  of  wines. — Chem.  News,  London,  Oct.  10, 
1863,  from  Comptes-Bendus,  lvii.,  394. 
PRESERVATION  OF  GRAPES  AND  OTHER  FRUITS. 
By  M.  le  Docteur  Rauch. 
Various  means,  more  or  less  successful,  have  been  suggested 
for  preserving  grapes,-— a  fruit  most  delicious  and  wholesome, 
but  very  difficult  to  keep.- 
One  of  the  simplest  ways  is  to  dip  the  ends — the  stalks  of 
the  bunches — in  sealing-wax,  and  to  suspend  them  from  poles 
or  cords  in  a  cellar  or  cool  room,  where  they  will  not  be  ex- 
posed to  frost.  By  carefully  removing  any  berries  that  may 
decay,  grapes  in  this  way  may  be  preserved  till  the  end  of  De- 
cember. They  generally  preserve  their  freshness  longer  in  a 
cellar  than  in  a  room,  where  the  air  is  dryer  ;  and  this  applies  to 
nearly  all  other  fruits.  For  this  reason  plums  may  be  preserved 
for  months  in  vessels  filled  with  sand,  hermetically  sealed,  and 
buried  in  the  ground ;  exclusion  of  the  air  having  the  same 
effect  in  each  case. 
In  the  south  of  Russia  there  is  another  way  of  preserving 
grapes.  They  are  gathered  before  they  are  quite  ripe,  put  into 
large  pots,  and  so  filled  with  millet  that  each  fruit  is  separate, 
and  the  pots  are  covered  so  as  to  render  them  air-tight.  They 
are  sent  in  this  way  to  the  markets  of  St.  Petersburg.  After 
remaining  thus  for  a  whole  year,  they  are  still  very  sweet,  all 
their  sugar  being  developed  by  the  ripening  process  in  the  pots. 
Recent  experiments  show  that  cotton  possesses  the  useful 
property  of  preserving  various  substances.  Meat-broth  in  a 
bottle,  lightly  closed  with  cotton,  has  been  found  to  keep  unal- 
tered for  more  than  a  year.  After  this  it  was  a  natural  course 
to  try  its  preservative  effect  on  various  other  substances,  and  in 
America  cotton  has  long  been  successfully  used  for  preserving 
grapes,  in  the  following  manner  : — 
The  branches  are  left  on  the  vine-stock  as  long  as  possible, 
even  to  the  early  frosts,  provided  they  are  but  slight.  The 
