192 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



derfiil how long fresh meats and other perishable provisions 

 can be preserved in good order, simply by allowing a free 

 circulation of air over and around them. 



We bought our experience of this fact at the expense of 

 our pocket and olfactories ; the slatted closet did not keep 

 insects away, Ave did not approve of their walking over 

 our eatables, and the mosquito-net ''dodge" had not yet 

 dawned upon our benighted intellect. Beef, for instance, 

 we put away after cooking in a covered dish, soups, gravies, 

 potatoes also — and the result? The chickens, those univer- 

 sal household scavengers, fared royally. Their noses were 

 not so well developed as ours, so they "did not mind;'* 

 but we cried aloud in despair, and those important prom- 

 ontories of the human facial landscape, the noses aforesaid, 

 were in sore danger of taking a permanent upward turn. 



It has been well said that the greatest discoveries have 

 been made by accident. One day we forgot to cover up 

 our beef, and it was one of the warmest days and nights 

 of the summer, yet, to our astonishment, the beef was per- 

 fectly sweet the following day. That set us to thinking, 

 and we left the covers off of our provisions next time of 

 malice prepense, and thereafter the chickens fared worse 

 and we fared better. 



Moral : Put your eatables where the air can play over 

 them, for Florida air is so pure and so dry that it acts as 

 a preservative. 



Another method of preserving beef or other fresh meat 

 from one day to another, which was unknown to us in 

 those early days, is to sprinkle a little powdered borax 

 over it; it will then keep perfectly sweet, and a simple 

 washing before cooking will remove all unpleasant taste. 



Now that we have given some idea of how things used 

 to be in the "old times" of a fcAv years ago, let us see how 

 they are now ; and in what we may say as to improvements 



