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 they might be employed for a useful purpose?

~15. The Alcohol Family.~--Scientists tell us that there are several
different kinds of alcohol. Naphtha is a strong-smelling liquid
sometimes used by painters to thin their paint and make it dry quickly.
It does not have the same odor as alcohol, but it looks and acts very
much like it. It will burn as alcohol does. It kills animals and plants.
It will make a person drunk if he takes a sufficient quantity of it.
Indeed, it is so like alcohol that it really is a kind of alcohol.

~16.~ There are also other kinds of alcohol. Fusel-oil, a deadly poison,
is an alcohol. A very small amount of this alcohol will make a person