134 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



enterprising persons who have adopted the infiltration process. 

 More than thirty years since it was suggested that the slow process 

 which demands thirty days for the penetration of salt into thick 

 pieces of beef and pork might be expedited by injecting the pickle 

 into the arteries. Of late years Dr. Morgan has revived the plan 

 and patented it. It has been extensively tried, and although 

 occasionally with apparent success, on the whole it has proved a 

 failure. It has injured even wealthy men in Texas, and has 

 contributed to swell the already considerable body of men who 

 look with some contempt on all innovations in the art of preserv- 

 ing meats. Now it is obvious that a mild pickle, freely diffused 

 throughout the tissues, could alone leave the meats in a palata- 

 ble condition. But then the amount of water introduced into 

 the body would leave the meat in a very different condition from 

 that of ordinary and properly cured corned beef. In fact, with 

 a mild pickle, calculated to leave the flesh palatable, putrefaction 

 speedily ensues ; whereas a strong pickle, distending the vessels, 

 attracts the meat-juice, and an ordinary salting takes place, but 

 the meat is not in a fit condition for use. Dr. Morgan may, 

 with considerable show of justice, assert that the prevailing proc- 

 ess of salting results in the manufacture of an article as unfit 

 for human food as any he can prepare with a strong pickle ; and 

 it is a disgrace that in the nineteenth century our armies and 

 navies are supplied with meats " cured " or " saved " at the ex- 

 pense of all that is good, savory and nourishing in animal food. 

 A heart-rending picture could be exposed to view by some 

 eloquent member of the medical profession who is well informed 

 of the progress and ravages of scurvy in the merchant and 

 admiralty services of different parts of the world. During your 

 civil war meats were supplied to soldiers which were quite unfit 

 for hogs to eat. It was removed from the " original pickle," in 

 which it had retained some nutritive properties, but in which it 

 could not be kept fresh for any length of time. It was repacked 

 — that is to say, again heavily salted — and the result, as tersely 

 expressed by a New York packer, is a mass of fibres all but 

 worthless for the purposes of human food. Not only, however, 

 is beef thus deteriorated ; pork, first salted by an application of 

 brinCj is often in very fair use for moderate consumption. But 

 the market gets overstocked, and the repacking system is adopted 

 with the same if not worse results than those alluded to with 



