MRS. B.
Precisely so. Your definition is perfectly correct.
CAROLINE.
And how many fermentations, or new arrangements, does a vegetable undergo before it is reduced to its simple ingredients?
MRS. B.
Chemists do not exactly agree in this point; but there are, I think, four distinct fermentations, or periods, at which the decomposition of vegetable matter stops and changes its course. But every kind of vegetable matter is not equally susceptible of undergoing all these fermentations.
There are likewise several circumstances required to produce fermentation. Water and a certain degree of heat are both essential to this process, in order to separate the particles, and thus weaken their force of cohesion, that the new chemical affinities may be brought into action.
CAROLINE.
In frozen climates, then, how can the spontaneous decomposition of vegetables take place?
MRS. B.