414 
ON  GLUCOSE. 
proprietors  manufacture  alcohol,  for  which  they  obtain  a  high 
price. 
An  excellent  article  of  starch  sugar  can  be  prepared  from  In- 
dian corn,  which  will  yield  alcohol  one-eighth  cheaper  and  quite 
as  pure  as  that  from  cane  sugar.  As,  by  a  recent  decision  of 
our  courts,  the  manufacturers  of  alcohol  and  vinegar  from  this 
source  are  not  distillers  within  the  meaning  of  the  tax  levy,  the 
business  is  not  hampered  by  licenses,  inspections,  or  stamp 
duties,  and  has  thus  a  great  advantage  over  ordinary  distilleries. 
In  some  parts  of  Europe  large  quantities  of  grape  sugar  are 
used  to  add  to  wine,  but  in  this  country  it  is  not  so  much  the 
wine  growers  as  the  brewers  who  make  such  an  extensive  use  of 
it  as  to  give  rise  to  its  regular  importation.  This  can  hardly 
be  justified  excepting  in  times  when  the  price  of  barley  is  very 
high. 
We  find  in  the  Zymoteclmic  Ngivs  of  St.  Louis,  an  interesting 
article  on  the  uses  of  starch  sugar  in  the  manufacture  of  beer, 
from  which  we  quote  the  following  paragraphs: 
"  Barley  contains  on  an  average  57  per  cent,  of  starch  and  cognate 
substances.  These  pass  into  the  wort,  partly  as  sugar,  partly  in  the  shape 
of  dextrine  (gum).  The  relative  proportions  of  these  ingredients  vary 
in  accordance  with  the  method  of  brewing,  but  experience  teaches  that, 
on  an  average,  one  bushel  of  barley  yields  about  12  pounds  of  sugar  and 
15  pounds  of  dextrine.  A  portion  of  the  latter  substance  is  further  trans- 
formed into  sugar  during  fermentation,  so  that  a  bushel  of  barley  repre- 
sents, on  an  average,  16  pounds  of  sugar  and  11  pounds  of  dextrine  (gum). 
"Both  dextrine  (gum)  and  sugar  are  equally  essential  to  the  brewing 
process.  The  latter  furnishes  the  alcohol,  without  which  no  beverage 
can  be  called  spirituous  ;  while  the  former  constitutes  almost  the  entire 
extractive  matter,  or  body  of  the  beer,  which  is  one  of  the  chief  distin- 
guishing features  between  beer  and  wine.  Now  it  is  true  that  all  (com- 
mercial) starch  sugar  contains  a  certain  amount  of  dextrine — the  more, 
the  poorer  the  quality  ;  but  this  portion  would  be  insufficient  in  case  a 
good  article  was  used,  while  in  the  contrary  case  it  would  be  paid  for  at 
an  extravagant  rate. 
"Imported  potato  sugar  of  good  quality,  containing  some  15  per  cent, 
of  dextrine  (gum),  costs  about  12  cents  per  pound  at  New  York.  Maize 
sugar  of  equal  purity  can  be  furnished  at  8  cents  per  pound.  Twenty 
pounds  of  either  article,  costing  respectively,  $2  40  and  $1  60,  would 
yield  16  pounds  of  fermentable  sugar  and  3  pounds  of  dextrine  (gum) 
while  a  bushel  of  barley  will  not  only  yield  16  pounds  of  sugar,  but  11 
pounds  of  dextrine  or  gum  besides.  Thus  starch  sugar  can  be  added  to 
beer  wort  only  in  small  quantities,  unless  when  it  is  desired  to  impart  a 
