VOl.. XII. HO. 37. 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



291 



INDIAN HEAL BREAD. 

 Take as much corn meal as is wanting for use, 

 sift it through a hair sifter, put it in an iron pot, 

 and pour on it boiling water; si ir it with a spatu- 

 la or ladle till it becomes well mixed and quite j 

 thin ; tins being night, let it remain in the same 

 vessel till morning, ami if kept warm it will be 

 well fermented, (which is necessary.) Then put 

 it in what is called a Dutch oven, it being hot be- 

 fore the dough is put in it; apply good live coals 

 upon the lid of the oven and under it, being care- 

 ful not to burn the. bread. When thus prepared, 

 if done carefully and according to this recipe 

 more wholesome and better bread cannot be used 

 for breakfast. I think it an antidyspeptic, as no 

 lard or butter is used in preparing the bread though 

 after it is cooked, good fresh butter adds to its fla- 

 vor. — American Fanner. 



PRESERVING BACON. 



Among the best flavored dishes that grace the 

 bounteous tables of this country, bacon or ham 

 ranks, if not the first cerjaiuly inferior to none. 



To make good bacon the meat should be hung 

 with the thickest part upwards, to prevent the ex- 

 udation of its juices, and each piece clear of the 

 wall, or other pieces, and there left until it is quite 

 dry. Seme sound chips, with a few billets of hickory 

 wood or corn cobs, make the best smoke, and al- 

 so keep the house warm, which is important ; for 

 if the smoke-house is cold, all former care will be 

 in some measure lost; a damp will settle on the 

 bacon and it will have a bitter flavor. Bacon 

 should never be smoked in damp weather, as is too 

 often practised, as by it the meat gains nothing in 

 color, but acquires a bad taste ; one or two g ! 

 fires each day will smoke the pieces, in precisely 

 the same time required for salting, that is to say, 

 hams four weeks, shoulders three weeks, and mid- 

 dlings and other pieces two weeks. 



I have used red pepper, with I think decided 

 advantage, by throwing a few pods into each fire 

 while smoking; this article, in salting or smoking 

 or in both, improves the flavor of the meat, and 

 tends to secure it against insects. If the meat 

 house is dark and cool, the meat may be left hang- 

 ing until wanted for use ; but if otherwise it should 

 bo taken down at the commencement of warm 

 weather, and packed away in salt, clean hickory 

 ashes, or oats; either will secure it from insects 

 or dripping, if the meat be entirely covered over, 

 and the interstices between the pieces properly 

 filled. The use of dry salt will not increase the 

 saline flavor of the meat. I have known bacon 

 very finely preserved, by preparing a strong ley of 

 wood ashes, concentrated by boiling, into which 

 when cold the pieces were dipped. 



The alkali and the oil of the meat form a coat- 

 ing of soap in all the crevices, as well as on the 

 surface, which is an admirable protection against 

 the insect tribe. 



Some attention should be paid to the construc- 

 tion of the smoke-house. As before observed, it 

 should be rendered warm during the process of 

 smoking, and if it is to retain the meat through 

 the season, should he cool, dry and dark. A brick 

 .stove in the centre of the floor with openings for 

 the escape and ascent of the smoke in the sides, 

 is among the best contrivances usual amongst us ; 

 but Ibis becomes heated, and does not entirely ob- 

 viate the danger arising from the occasional falling 

 of the meat, by which houses are not unfrequent- 

 ly burned. It will probably be more safe and con. 



venient to build a chimney with a very low fire 

 place, as for a silling room, and when the chimney 

 is carried up four feet and closed at the top. A 

 small grate placed a few inches from the hearth, 

 will assist the burning of the wood. By having a 

 chimney thus constructed the blaze of the fire can 

 never injure the house or meat ; no pieces can fall 

 into the fire when a nail or string gives way, and 

 whilst the blaze and smoke ascends tha blind chim- 

 ney, llie smoke must descend again and pour into 

 the smoke house. This plan is highly recommend- 

 ed for its safely anil convenience, by a gentleman 

 whose advice is entitled to great respect, and to 

 whom 1 was originally indebted for several of the 

 directions here given, the value of which I have 

 verified in the course of my own experience. 



An Admirer of good Bacon. 



From GoodselVs Farmer. 

 THE SWEET POTATO. 

 Mr. Goodsell, I have noticed in several 

 numbers of your papers some observations on the 

 cultivation of the sweet potato, none of which 

 meet my ideas of the correct mode. Having lived 

 a number of years in the State of Georgia, and 

 being conversant with the cultivation of that vege- 

 table experimentally, 1 am induced to give you 

 some observations adapted to this climate, which 

 if followed, I am persuaded, will be attended with 

 full success. 



About the 20th of March make a hot bed in the 

 usual form about four feet square, in which plant 

 your sweet potatoes about three inches apart ; let 

 them be treated as hot bed plants during the month 

 of April, keeping on the sash, and no matter how 

 irregularly compressed within the frame, provided 

 they are kept warm and in agrowing state. 



About the first of May, take a piece of ground 

 well ploughed and prepared, make hills about three 

 feet apart in the row, and the rows about three 

 and a half or four feet apart, then take oft" your 

 sash from the hot bed, and cut the vines about 

 twelve inches from the root, leaving the root 

 in the bed ; remove the vine to your prepared 

 ground, and cut them into lengths about fifteen 

 inches long; take one piece of the vine, wind the 

 middle about the fingers so as to leave both ends 

 out, plant tb.e middle about three inches deep, leav- 

 ing the ends about two inches above the ground 

 to each hill about five pieces of vine in open order : 

 in about ten days they will have taken root, and 

 about the first of November will have filled the hills 

 with large potatoes. 



Then take the seed potatoes out of the hot bed 

 and plant one or two in the middle of each hill, 

 not in the same hills where the vines are placed, 

 but in separate hills. About the middle of June 

 the vines will have run a considerable distance, 

 when they may be cut again and planted in a sim- 

 ilar manner in hills freshly prepared for seed the 

 next year. By this method the southern planters 

 often raise from four to five hundred bushels to 

 the acre from the first planting, of large and fine 

 potatoes for use, and from the last planting, which 

 is usually done by them about the first of August, 

 the-, get a plenty of small ones for seed which 

 they call slips. It is very rare they plant more 

 than a quarter of an acre with seeds, depending 

 chiefly on planting the vine, which if done by the 

 10th of June, is pretty certain to yield a large crop 

 and will furnish vines sufiicieut to plant at least 5 

 acres. 



To keep them over winter, or for any length of 

 time for use, they should be packed in such man- 

 ner as not to touch each other, being very liable 

 to heat like corn, and kept secure from frost. As 

 good a way as any is to set them about half an 

 inch apart covered with dry sand, in a warm dry 

 cellar. 



By observing the above directions, I have no 

 doubt they may be raised with great success in 

 this climate. A sandy soil or loam is best adap- 

 ted to their cultivation, but any dry muck soil will 

 answer very well. I remain, &c. 



R. M. WILLIAMS. 



PRODUCTIVE SJ1IALL FARM. 



TtiE Ohio Repository furnishes the following 

 product of 1.5 acres of improved land. 



Mr. Thomas Gibbons of Harrison co. Ohio, has 

 a farm of twenty acres of land, 15 of which are 

 improved. He keeps three cows, sells 121bs. of 

 butter per week, and from 50 to 601bs. of cheese 

 per annum. He killed 22001bs. of pork ; sold 

 1723lbs. and keeps 7 hogs over winter. He rais- 

 ed 100 bushels of wheat, and 2 1-2 acres of corn ; 

 mowed 3 tons of clover hay and one of timothy, 

 and has from 7 to 9 bushels of clover seed for sale. 

 He keeps two horses and 10 head of sheep; has 

 3 children ; and his hired labor costs him but $5. 



MAPLE SUGAR. 



A Method of Extracting the Juice of the Sugar 

 Maple, for the Making of Sugar, without Injuring 

 the Tree. — It has been customary to cut a gash in 

 the tree, from which the saccharine liquor flows, 

 or to bore a hole, and put in a reed, and, when 

 the liquor ceases to flow, plugging up the hole. 

 Both these methods are injurious, and tend to de' 

 stroy the tree. In the latter case, the tree rots 

 round the plug to some distance within. The fol- 

 lowing method is proposed in lieu of these, and has 

 been successfully practised in Kentucky. At the 

 proper season for the running of the liquor, open the 

 ground, and select a tender root, about the size of 

 one or two fingers ; cut oft' the end, and raise the 

 root sufficiently out of the ground to turn the cut 

 end into the receiver. It will emit the liquor from 

 the wound as freely as by either of the other 

 methods. When it ceases to flow, bury the root 

 again, and the tree will not be hurt. — Mackenzie. 



FOWLS. 



The advice of the following paragraph is very 

 little heeded by American farmers. — N. Y. Far. 



The breeders of fowls are well aware of the im- 

 propriety of saving a male and female from the 

 same sitting of eggs, if they are to be kept for 

 breeding. 



LAMBS. 



Manv farmers suffer much from the loss of 

 lambs. It is found in England that balls of wool 

 are formed in the stomach, obtained from the ewe. 

 The wooj around the udder should be cut off. 



JV. Y. Farmer. 



A FAT SHEEP. 



The Ontario Repository states that a sheep was 

 slaughtered lately by Mr. Josiah Sutherland, of 

 Canandaigua, from which was obtained forty sev- 

 en and a quarter pounds of tallow. The wool 

 from this sheep after being cleansed weighed six 

 and a half pounds. 



