614 MISCELLANEOUS FARM SUBJECTS 



Cane Sirup. 



Sucrose 54.20 



Glucose 3.70 



For keeping sirup for family use, we recommend the ordinary 

 glass fruit jars. They are less trouble than other vessels, and can 

 be used year after year by renewing the rubbers, and occasionally 

 the tops, and, in the end, they are the cheapest. The farmer who 

 produces a small quantity of cane for sirup-making should provide 

 for keeping it on his table the entire year by properly bottling or 

 canning and sterilizing the required amount. He should find the 

 sirup equally palatable at all seasons, and quite economical. The 

 important thing is to kill all ferments in the sirup and vessel by 

 heat, and thereafter prevent others from gaining entrance. In our 

 experiments in preserving sirup in fruit jars, under the precaution 

 given above, none were in the least fermented at the end of one or 

 two years. (Dept. Agr. F. B. 118, 122, 203; Louisiana Sta. 2nd 

 Series No. 75.) 



FOOD ACCESSORIES. 



Beverages, condiments, and other food accessories give flavor to 

 the food or increase its palatability, but have little or no food value 

 in themselves. Under the head of food accessories are classed tea 

 and coffee, condiments, flavorings, etc. Pickles might very properly 

 be classed under the same head since they are used more as a condi- 

 ment than as a food. They have, however, some food value. Al- 

 though the food accessories neither build tissue nor yield energy, 

 they make the food more palatable and may be of some aid to diges- 

 tion by causing a more profuse secretion of the digestive juices and 

 in other ways. They are an element of expense, entering, to a 

 greater or less extent, into the dietaries of all families. (0. E. S. 

 52.) 



COFFEE SUBSTITUTES. 



Coffee substitutes of domestic manufacture have long been 

 known. An infusion of parched corn, or corn coffee, has met with 

 some favor in the household as a drink for invalids, etc. Parched 

 wheat, peas, chicory beans, and corncobs, as well as sweet potatoes, 

 cut into small pieces and dried and parched, have also been used. 

 There are a number of coffee substitutes which generally claim to be 

 made from cereals. In most cases the claim is also made that such 

 beverages are especially wholesome, and in some cases that they have 

 a high food value. The value as food of coffee or any such beverage 

 is evidently due (1) to the material extracted from the coffee (or, 

 other substance) by the water used, and (2) to the sugar and milk 

 or cream added to the infusion. As the bulk of the infusion is water, 

 it is obvious that the food value can not be great. The infusion of 

 true coffee has very little nutritive value. It is taken for its taste 

 and the stimulating effect of the caffine in it. Cocoa, when made 

 of milk or milk and water, is quite nutritious. 



MINERALS AS FOOD. 



Mineral Matter. The foodstuffs we have thus far considered. 

 the fats, carbohydrates and proteins, while essential to the body, are 



