for House Use or Sea Stores, 209 



A new MetJiod to preserve various Sorts of English Garden 

 and Orchard Fruit, without Sugar, 



GENTLEMEN, 



The general utility, as well as luxurious benefit, arising 

 from the fruil produced by our gardens and orchards, is well 

 known and acknowledged at the festive board of every fa- 

 mily j nor is this utility and benefit less manifested by a de- 

 sire of many persons to preserve them for culinary purposes, 

 in the more un bountiful season of the year ; and I am well 

 persuaded that this commendable desire would be greatly 

 extended in most families, was it not attended with so much 

 expense as is generally the case by preserving fruit in the 

 colli mon mode with sugar, that article chiefly constituting 

 the basis by which it is effected. In addition to the expense 

 of sugar, which is frequently urged as a reason for not pre- 

 serving, there are other objections to that method, and what 

 T am about to mention cannot be considered as the least, 

 namely, the great uncertainty of success, occasioned by the 

 strong fermentable qualities contained in many sorts of fruit. 

 It may be said by some, that fruit may be preserved for a 

 length of time without sugar by the ordinary mode of baking 

 or boiling, and being closely stopped up, to which assertion 

 I freely assent 3 but even that method is frequently attended 

 with uncertainty ; for if the cork or other means used for 

 keeping the external air out of the vessel becomes dry, or 

 from any other cause the atmospheric air exchanges place 

 with what is impregnated by the fruit, it soon becomes 

 mouldy and unfit for use. 



From these considerations, and a desire of preserving fruit 

 at a trifling expense, I have made various and successful 

 experiments of doing it without sugar, and at the same time 

 with a certainty of their retaining all those agreeable flavours 

 which they naturally possess ; and it is highly probable that 

 they will keep perfectly good for two or three years, or even 

 a longer period, in any hot climate, by which it appears to 

 become a valuable store for shipping or exportation, as I 

 have exposed them to the action of the meridian sun in an 

 upper room, during the whole of the summer, after they 



Vol. 33. No. 131. March 1SO0. O have 



