the quantity to produce the same effect. An immense quantity of this kind of sugar was made in France, when the war almost shut up the sources which supplied the sugar of the cane.
The third species of sugar, is furnished by the juices of almost all fruits from which sweet extracts or syrups are made. This species of sugar, so abundant in the products of vegetation, is not susceptible of any other than its liquid form.
The existence of one or other of these kinds of sugar, is necessary for the production of alcohol by fermentation; and a natural consequence of this fundamental principle, which is confirmed by experience, is that the bodies in which the saccharine matter is most abundant, should produce the most spirituous liquor. But the necessity cannot be too much insisted upon, of distinguishing between the sugar, properly so called, and the sweet principle. The sugar in the grape, from the decomposition of which, the alcohol results, is constantly mingled with a sweet substance, more or less abundant, and which serves for a ferment. It is a leaven, that, in almost all cases, accompanies sugar, but which, by itself, is not capable of yielding alcohol; whence it is, that rum is made from the produce of sugar-cane in its liquid state; sugar, separated by crystallization, if pure, being of itself not susceptible of fermentation.
