140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



acid will in a few years' time, to a great extent, supersede the 

 use of salt. 



It is a compound wliicli can be readily prepared and weighed, 

 the strength of which is uniform and the action of which never 

 varies. Sulphurous acid left in contact with dry air remains 

 uncombined ; but when absorbed by charcoal its avidity for 

 oxygen is enormously increased, or perhaps it is safer to say 

 that the charcoal tends to favor the contact of air and acid gas 

 so as to insure a prompt combination. The compound, how- 

 ever, has other advantages. The acid gas is held in the char- 

 coal pores even in vacuo. It is given off gradually just as the 

 meat can take it up, and in fact as the meat parts with watery 

 vapor the charcoal becomes saturated with moisture. It is, 

 therefore, an excellent drier, and you will have gleaned from 

 what I have stated that in all processes of meat-preservation 

 desiccation is an almost essential adjunct. 



For some months after I first successfully used the charcoal 

 process, I continued, with somewhat imperfect appliances, to 

 pack meat in iron cans, with lids soldered on, and tubes of 

 ingress and egress for exhaustion and the admission of gases. 

 I was impressed with the idea that has repeatedly destroyed the 

 hopes of meat-preservers, that it was easier to keep meats in 

 liermetically-sealed vessels than in the open air. We learned 

 iii the summer of 1867 that meats preserved in cans, by the 

 combined action of carbonic oxide and sulphurous acid, would 

 cross the Atlantic, if packed in simple brown paper, and from 

 that day to this my operations have been directed to the preser- 

 vation of the entire carcasses of animals, which require, accord- 

 ing to their size and thickness, from five to twenty days for 

 their complete preservation. Meat thus preserved I have now 

 the pleasure of showing you, and an opportunity will be afforded 

 you of tasting and otherwise examining it. Such meat keeps 

 many mouths, and may be preserved anywhere, at any season 

 of the year, and when other modes of preservation, such as 

 salting, are impracticable. There are conditions to be ob- 

 served according to the surrounding circumstances; but any- 

 where and everywhere animals can be cured, by the dozen, fifties 

 or hundreds, in air-tight compartments, and the cost in any part 

 •of the American continent cannot exceed, including all possible 



