ALCOHOL FROM TREES.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1076, 30 May 1873, Page 3

ALCOHOL FROM TREES.

The Chicago Tribune gives the follow ing recipe for making brandy from sawdust of pino ahd'fir timber mixed, from which a compound is prepared, composed of 9 parts of sawdusts, 33 7 parts'of water, - 7 of one part of hydrochloric acid, making 434 parts altogether. This is to be boiled under steam pressure for eleven hours, when it will be found that 19 per cent of the mass will be grape sugar. The acid is to be neutralised with lime, and the mash supplied with yeast. After ninety-six hours' fermentation a distillation of the mass will produce sixtyone quarts of brandy of 50 per cent, strength. Here is an opening for a new and almost unlimited increase in the manufacture of spirits. Many other woods besides fir and pine will probably be as well adapted for the purpose. In the large timber districts of the United Statas, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many other parts of the world, immense quantities of sawdust, now unutilised may be made to become as valuable as the timber, if not more so. The teetotallers argue that alcohol was invented by the Evil One for the destruction of the human family and he certainly has an 'unlimited supply of the raw material at his command. Almost the entire range'of-vegetable products has been f made to v yield fermented and spiritu- ' ous liquors, and amongst the most highly cultivated as well as the most barbarous nations the art of making intoxicating drinks is cultivated with •commercial success. It is only lately 'we have heard of sawdust being added to the long list of materials from which to distill waipirau, but it is quite possible that a local industry may arise in this direction, which would be a lucrative investment for those who em'bark in it.