PRESERVATION OF FRUITS BY SECLUSION. 197 



the cork in by repeated blows with a mallet ; a few lines 

 of the length of the cork must be left beyond the mouth 

 of the bottle to receive the wire or twine with which it 

 is to be secured. Each bottle is then to be put into a 

 bag of strong linen, which will cover it to the cork, and 

 placed in a boiler filled with water to the rings of the 

 bottles. The boiler is to be covered, and over the lid 

 must be placed a damp linen cloth, to secure the retention 

 of the heat. The apparatus being thus prepared, the 

 water may be heated to boiling, and continued in that state 

 as long as the nature of the substance to be preserved 

 requires. 



When the fire has been removed from the fire-place a 

 quarter of an hour, the water must be drawn oflf by means 

 of a siphon, or of a stop-cock placed near the bottom of 

 the boiler ; the cover must not be removed to take out the 

 bottles till fifteen minutes after the water has been drawn 

 off.* 



When meat or other solid food is to be preserved, wide- 

 mouthed bottles or jars may be used in the same manner 

 as the narrow-necked bottles mentioned above. Good 



[* The translator of this work has preserved the most delicate fruit 

 by a process somewhat similar to the one here described, but with one 

 pretty important difference. As the preservation of the fruit seems 

 to depend wholly upon the exclusion of the air, which would not be 

 effected by corkmg the bottles before exposing them to heat, and as 

 the bottles would be in great danger of being burst by the expansion 

 of the air contained not only in the fruits themselves, but in the 

 interstices which must unavoidably occur between them, the above 

 method appears to be an imperfect one ; she therefore .takes the liberty 

 of inserting in this note the process which she has used successfully, 

 and particularly as she has found fruit thus preserved exceedingly 

 grateful in sickness at those seasons of the year when no fresh fruit 

 could be procured, and when that which was done with sugar was 

 neither suitable nor agreeable. 



Pick carefully over the fruit to be bottled so as to take only such 

 as is perfectly sound, and put it in bottles having wide mouths with 

 closely fitting corks, shake the fruit well down so as to leave as little 

 space unoccupied as possible in the bottles ; when they are quite full, 

 set them uncorked into a boiler of cold water over tlie fire, raise the 

 temperature of the water as quickly as possible to the boiling point, 

 and as soon as ebullition takes place, put the corks into the bottles, 

 and remove them from the boiler; some ready melted cement, 

 Buch as is commonly used for closing bottles, must be immediately 

 applied over the corks, and the fruit having been freed by the heat 

 from the air contained within the bottles will thus be protected from 

 the action of the external air, and may be preserved fresh for manj 

 months.— Tr.] 



17 * 



