The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-04-18
Biggest Cask
Ever Constructed

FRESNO, Cal, April 14.-The largest
cask in the world has recently been
completed at st. George vineyard. To-
Gated at Maltermoro. 1t contains o.
600 gallons, or enough to give nine mil
lion persons each an ordinary wine
glassful OF its contents. 1t Is built of
the very finest California redwood, and
In all the vast amount Of lumber used
In constructing 1t there Is not a single
HaW. The object Of building SO large
a cask is to keep on hand at the St
George vineyard a uniform supplv Of
wine. the contents Of the cask being
that wine of which the most is sold
several years ago the necessity for
something Of this sort became appar-
ent. To build a cask Of the size rc
Ierred to seemed an impossibility at
Irst, but after the matter was thor
oughly discussed the members of the
vineyard company made up their minds
10 try. So the redwood forests of Hum
poIdt county were called upon to SUD-
ply the necessary timber
Inc selection of lumber for the casl1
was no ordinary task, for not more
IMAM one stick in a dozen Of those pre-
sented for examination would do. If
was an absolute necessity that the
material be f1aWless. At last. enough
lumber Of the very first quality was
found and then the work of driving Il
SO that there would be not the slightest
Danger OF shrinkage began. 1t required
JliSt TWO years to complete this task
Inc lumber ready, two entire trains
OF cars proved necessary to convey il
10 the nearest point to the vineyard.
rms lumber was amply sufficient III
quantity to erect such house as does
not exist in California. Think of a
bulldlng constructed Of redwood Ium-
per, which was absolutely f1awless. The
IInest house on Mob Hill in San Fran
cisco, cannot boast Of the quality that
makes this wine cask useful. The
hoops that bind the cask together are
OF finely tempered steel In the ag-
gregate they would fill two large
fre1ght cars and their total weight is
forty thousand pounds. The cask
towers to a height of thirty feet and
Is twenty-six feet in diameter. If its
bulk in freight cars it would take thirty
OF the biggest to hold them.
AS compared with other casks in
which the vineyard company keeps its
Wine the proportion is about the same
as that of bunch Of grapes to the
parent vine. In fact, there is only one
leglt1mately compared with this giant
OF California, and that is the great tun
OF Heidelberg, Germany, which for a
century and half has been famous
wherever men drank wine and knew
from whence it came. The California
cask was not constructed with the in
tent1On Of OutdOing anyone but simply
for business reasons. The difference in
size of these two tunS can best be I'M
derstood by considering the fact that
the German cask holds $4,000 gallons
and the California cask $4,000, showing
the former to be less than half the size
of the latter.
Considering the contents Of the cask
from the measurement of gallons, the
idea of it's immensely is not as fully
impressed as when figuring on a basis
of lesser quantities. For instance the
cask holds 900 quarts, or 10000
pints, or 100000 gills. An ordinary
glass of wine is about a third of a
gill; perhaps a little less. This huge
cask would hold a sufficient quantity
to permit 100000 persons to partake
of a glass of whatever brand of juice
of the grape filled it. Therefore, if
every inhabitant Of the greatest five
cities Of the United States should pass
III procession this huge redwood re-
ceptacle each might enjoy a libation
therefrOm. Figuring the value of the
contents of the cask at the price it
would be retailed at in the states where
wine is not made the total reached is
$500 200, so near a million that it can
without great stretching be called a
milliOn-dollar cask. OF course, the val
lie Of the contents in California does