THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 279 



pickles you want jest about a peck of coarse salt. Turk s 

 Island is the best, dissolved in water. That will jest 

 about float an egg. If I want to keep them a long time 

 in the brine, I look at em occasionally, and add a little 

 more salt, if I think they need it.&quot; 



&quot; And what is to be done when you want to put them 

 into vinegar ? &quot; I enquired. 



&quot; Oh, that is easy enough. You jest scald the cucum 

 bers in a brass kettle, and let them stand a few hours, 

 changing the water two or three times to take the salt out. 

 You can tell by the taste when they are fresh enough.&quot; 



&quot; What do you have a brass kettle for ? &quot; 



&quot; They say it makes em green. My mother always 

 used a brass kettle.&quot; 



&quot; And how is it about the poison ? &quot; 



&quot; Well, I never heard of it s hurting any body. If you 

 have good cider vinegar, the green pickles will be whole 

 some enough. Every body in Hookertown cures em in 

 this way, and we are not an ailin set of people.&quot; 



Aunt Polly is right about the vessel for freshening the 

 pickles. A good deal more depends upon the vinegar 

 than upon the vessel, and I suspect the brass kettle with 

 its trace of verdigris is made to answer for all the atro 

 cious compounds they put into the vinegar. The slops of 

 the rum shops and drinking saloons, sulphuric, and other 

 mineral acids, are put in liberally to give sharpness to the 

 vinegar. This must be injurious to the stomach, and I 

 suspect it is to prevent the public from learning the com 

 position of the vinegar, that the pickle men affect so much 

 mystery about their business. 



Farmers have no apology for using any thing but home 

 made vinegar and pickles. They can always have the 

 best, and plenty. A cucumber is little else than thickened 

 water, a sort of sponge to hold vinegar. If good, it sup 

 plies the vegetable acid for which the system has so strong 

 a craving in hot weather. The doctors tell us it regulates 



