Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-10-30
GRAPE JUICES
PROGRESS SLOW
With Dry Era it Becomes
Hope of Growers
First Made in 1869

Grape growers of the country are
wondering whether the popularity
of grape juice will increase rapidly
left by the prohibition of the max
ing of wine and prevent a great
slump in the market.
or course a goodly part of the
surplus will be used by people max
ing their own wine at home. The
rest must go into grape juice or be
exported against n product which
can be produced elsewhere more
cheaply than in the United States.
Slowly people are coming around
to grape juice. Many still never use
it. Yet there has been a steady
growth in the use of the drink so
urgently put forward by William
Jennings Bryan.
Made First at Vineland
1t was in 1859 that one of the
juice was made. At Vineland, N. j.,
a man whose name still stands in the
grape juice world conceived the
idea of making unfermented wine,
which he offered as a substitute for
alcoholic wine in communion SER
vice.
He believed the grape juice would
become popular with both ministers
and physicians, but in this he was
disappointed. Instead, many of the
leading clergy of his day dubbed him
q religious fanatic, arguing that only
pure wine and no substitute would
be tolerated for communion service.
At the same time physicians called
him a medical crank, claiming that
unfermented wine would cause a lot
of trouble by fermenting in the
stomach.
Nevertheless he continued the
manufacture of grape juice, which
developed as a business very slowly,
for several years, when he trans
ferred all interests to his son, who
made every effort to populariZe the
beverage, but progress was slow and
Disappointing. But the son, being
full of pluck, kept on pegging away
as he felt sure that victory would
come some day.
In the early ninetieS the father,
having accumulated considerable
money, again took up the work with
the son and started an advertising
and selling campaign, and the turn
ing point seemed to be reached at
the Worlds Fair in Chicago in 1898
The business grew rapidly, and to-
day four large factories, two in New
York, one in Pennsylvania and one
in Canada, are busy turning out the
product.
Grape Juice Without Sugar
The originator died in 1904 with
out having made any money, but he
left the world a rich legacy in point
ing out a new use for our native
grapes. The manufacture of fruit
TIT -,
ming and not of the wine industry.
The preserving of fruit consists in
saturating the fruit pulp with cane
sugar to a point where decay is pre-
vented because of the large amount
of sugar. On the other hand, can
ming consists in destroying all of the
ferment-forming organisms by suf-
tiCient amount of heat. In the lat
ter case sugar may be used for
flavoring, but not for keeping quail
ity.
His first factory was the home
kitchen, and the storage building
was his barn. He used sugar to help
preserve the juice, but noticing that
sugar was apt to destroy much OF
the delicate flavor and aroma OF
the grape, he gradually reduced the
am cunt of sweetness, and developed
methods of perfect sterilization un-
til finally he discovered that the
best grape juice is made from fully
matured and well grown Concord
grapes and without the use of sugar
Increase in Factories
During the past nineteen years
many new grape juice companies
sprang up, located mainly in New
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan
and California. There were 165
companies in this country in 1914.
Grape buyers paid $40 ton for
grapes in 1897, but the price gradu-
ally increased until 1918, when they
paid $50. So with the increase in
manufacture of grape juice and, OF
course, increased consumption, new
markets will spring up for the grape
and it is possible to still make the
production of that fruit profitable.