made wine at Castle Coch these many years, and of the most
excellent. Unfortunately I have not his acquaintance, so I invite
advice, and shall be grateful for it. The chief of my perplexities are
concerned with the beginning of fermentation and the end of it. For
the first, should I use yeast? My neighbours here say, yes; the French
tell me that I don't need it, the grapes having enough of their own.
Pass that and consider the second point. Having started your ferment,
how do you stop it?[A] Fermentation in Italy goes on in the barrel,
after the liquor has left the vat. That gives you a peculiar prickly
wine which the Italians call "Frizzante" and profess to like. Our word
for it is "beastly."

[Footnote A: Since that was written I have learned the answer. It
stops itself--why, I don't know, unless by the grace of God.]

My village gossips tell me that fermentation will stop of itself when
I draw the wine off the lye; but the French practice certainly seems
to be to burn sulphur matches in the vat and so kill the vinegar germs
there latent. And then _platrage_? You sprinkle the must with plaster
of Paris before fermentation begins. Is that done in England? It is
not done in this part of England at least. Nor do I know why it
is done in France. Probably before I have solved my problems by
stomach-ache and other experiences of a biliary kind, prohibition
will be in the air over here, wafted upon some newspaper breeze from
America. There will be no difficulty in starting a fermentation out of
that sweeping doctrine, that's for certain. I don't say that we need
take prohibition seriously; but we think about it, naturally, and talk
about it out here.

If it were put to the local vote in this village, it would be lost.
We have many total abstainers, yet one of them, I know, and several of
them, I believe, would vote against it. Says the one I am sure of:
"If I abstain from strong drink, as I do, it is my own doing; and if I
were tempted to a fall and withstood it, that is to my credit. But if
the law cuts me off it, and I am a criminal if I drink, it cuts me off
a good part of my credit too--and I am against that." My friend has
there put his finger upon a sharp little dilemma. If alcohol is a bad
thing, then prohibition is a good thing. But if temperance is a good
thing, then prohibition is a bad thing. You cannot be temperate in the
use of alcohol if you have none. Nor is sobriety a virtue in you if
you lock up the wine