200 CHYMISTRY APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE. 



ARTICLE III. 



On the Preservation of certain Articles of Food hy means 

 of Salt and Spirituous Liquors. 



Most of the articles employed as food, or other domestic 

 purposes, may be prepared by the following methods. 



1. By immersing them in liquids which will not dissolve 

 them, and which will not themselves be changed by time. 



2. By combining them with other bodies with which they 

 form indestructible compounds. 



3. By saturating them with salts. 



In the first method the liquor usually employed is either 

 alcohol or brandy ; many other fluids, as the acids, 

 oil, &c., might be made use of, but these alter the taste, 

 and change the qualities of the greater part of the sub- 

 stances, which are designed for food. Nearly all kinds 

 of fruit may be preserved in alcohol, but it is used only 

 for those of small size, as it cannot penetrate throughout 

 the substance of the larger kinds, and consequently they 

 are liable to decay ; I shall therefore mention only the modes 

 of preserving cherries and plums in brandy. 



The juice of six pounds of early and very ripe cherries 

 put into a sauce-pan, with three pounds of powdered 

 sugar, is set over a fire and made to boil for half an hour ; 

 the sauce-pan is then removed from the fire, and a pound 

 of ripe raspberries is thrown into the liquor and pressed 

 down with a skimmer ; to the whole is added six pints of 

 brandy flavored with some aromatic, such as cloves, cinna- 

 mon, vanilla, &/C. This preparation is preserved in close 

 jars set in the sun. 



As soon as the large cherries are ripe, the preparation 

 of brandy, mentioned in the last paragraph, is to be strain- 

 ed and then put into glass jars filled with the fruit to be 

 preserved ; these jars are placed on windows exposed to the 

 sun, till the fruit becomes penetrated by the liquor. 



Plums are prepared in a somewhat different manner. For 

 preserving, take the finest green gages, prick them, and 

 put them into a sauce-pan with cold water ; set the sauce- 

 pan on the fire, and as fast as the plums rise, remove them 

 with a skimmer, and throw them into cold water ; dissolve 

 two pounds of sugar in two pounds of hot water, and 

 when the sirup is cold, throw the plums into it, and allow 



