some at
Philadelphia ten years ago, at the house of a Hollander, who received it
from Massachusetts in hogsheads of about ten hundred weight, and sold as
the produce of his own country, what was really that of the United
States.

I collected myself a great quantity of those berries, at Norfolk, Va. by
means of negroes, to whom I paid one dollar per bushel of 40 lbs. being
2-1/2 cts. per pound. Two years ago, it sold for 6 cents in
Philadelphia, and bore the same price at Pittsburgh.

There is a great deal of cedar in Kentucky, and consequently of berries.
I have seen them at Blue Licks, and they abound near the Kentucky
river.

Although an incredible number of those trees is cut down daily, there is
still a greater number standing, in the United States; and millions of
bushels of berries are lost every year, while only skilful hands are
wanted, to make them useful to mankind. The juniper berry has many
medical properties: it is a delightful aromatic, and contains an oil
essential, and a sweet extract, which by the fermentation yields a
vinous liquor, made into a sort of wine in some countries; that is
called wine for the poor: it strengthens the stomach, when debilitated
by bad food or too hard labor.

The Hollanders, who have long had the art of trading upon every thing,
have constantly turned even their poverty to account. They have immense
fabrications of gin, and scarcely any juniper trees. They only collect
the berry in those countries where it is neglected as useless, as in
France and Tyrol, which produce a great deal of it. The United States
need have no recourse to Europe, in order to get the juniper berries:
they have in abundance at home, what the Hollanders can only procure
with trouble and money. They can therefore rival them with great
advantage; but they must follow the same methods employed in the Holland
distilleries.

The juniper berry contains the sweet mucous extract, in a great
proportion: it has therefore the principle necessary to the spirituous
fermentation; and, indeed, it ferments spontaneously. When fresh, and
heaped up, it acquires a degree of heat, but not enough to burn, as I
have ascertained: it is therefore safely transported in hogsheads. From
that facility of fermenting, it must be considered as a good ferment,
and as increasing the quantity of spirit, when joined to a fermentable
liquor.

A distiller may at pleasure convert his whiskey into gin. He needs only
to perfume the wor