not be effected. There is what is called a _fret_, which is only a
partial fermentation, that nature is strong enough in some liquors to
bring on, without the assistance of art; but this _fret_, or partial
fermentation, is never strong enough to discharge the liquor of its
foul parts; and if they should ever happen to subside, the least
alteration in weather, as well as a hundred other accidents, will
occasion their commixing, and render the liquor almost, or altogether
as foul as ever; to prevent which we call in the assistance of art,
and which our method will effectually prevent.

In brewing beer, yest is apply'd to it, in order to ferment it,
without which it would never be beer. This opens the body of the
liquor, and renders it spirity and fine.

The reason that cyder is not often fine, is owing to its not being
fermented. After it is got into the hogshead, the generality of people
think they have acquitted themselves very well, and done all the
necessary business, except racking it. But I can assure them, the more
any liquor is rack'd, the more it is weaken'd. By often racking, it
loseth its body, and so becomes acid for want of strength to support
it.

Another gross error many people are guilty of, in keeping the bungs
out of the casks. Nothing is more pernicious to fermented liquors,
than their being exposed to the open air, whereby they lose their
strength and flavour. Take a bottle of wine, draw the cork, and let it
stand exposed to the open air for twenty-four hours only, and you will
then find it dead, flat, and insipid; for the spirit is volatile,
and has been carried off by the air, and what remains is the gross,
elementary part chiefly. A cyder-cask should never be kept open more