ow
when fermentation has taken place by the great number of small bubbles
which appear. When the liquid has fermented, you may prove that alcohol
is present by means of the same experiment by which you found the
alcohol in cider or wine. (See page 160.)

~10.~ Alcohol is made from the sweet juices of fruits by simply allowing
them to ferment. Wine, as you know, is fermented grape juice. Cider is
fermented apple juice. The strong alcoholic liquor obtained by
distilling wine, cider, or any kind of fermented fruit juice, is known
as brandy.

~11. How Beer is Made.~--Beer is made from grain of some sort. The grain
is first moistened and kept in a warm place for a few days until it
begins to sprout. The young plant needs sugar for its food; and so while
the grain is sprouting, the starch in the grain is changed into sugar by
a curious kind of digestion. This, as you will remember, is the way in
which the saliva acts upon starch. So far no very great harm has been
done, only sprouted grain, though very sweet, is not so good to eat as
grain which has not sprouted. Nature intends the sugar to be used as
food for the little sproutlet; but the brewer wants it for another
purpose, and he stops the growth of the plant by drying the grain in a
hot room.

~12.~ The next thing the brewer does is to grind the sprouted grain and
soak it in water. The water dissolves out the sugar. Next he adds yeast
to the sweet liquor and allows it to ferment, thus converting the sugar
into alcohol. Potatoes are sometimes treated in a similar way.

~13.~ By distilling beer, a strong liquor known as whiskey is obtained.
Sometimes juniper berries are distilled with the beer. The liquor
obtained is then called gin. In the West Indies, on the great sugar
plantations, large quantities of liquor are made from the skimmings and
cleanings of the vessels in which the sweet juice of the sugar-cane is
boiled down. These refuse matters are mixed with water and fermented,
then distilled. This liquor is called rum.

~14.~ Now you have learned enough about alcohol to know that it is not
produced by plants in the same way that food is, but that it is the
result of a sort of decay. In making alcohol, good food is destroyed and
made into a substance which is not fit for food, and which produces a
great amount of sickness and destroys many lives. Do you not think it a
pity that such great quantities of good corn and other grains should be
wasted in this way when th