4 I. VEGETABLES. 



Many nutritive fruits of warm climates, as figs, dates, jubebs, 

 sebestens, myrobalans, are dried in the sun upon hurdles. 



Dried peels of fruits, as those of pomegranates, oranges, or 

 lemons. In this case, the outer peel should be separated with an 

 ivory or silver knife from the greatest part of the white fungous 

 substance, and it should not be squeezed or moistened wiVh the 

 juice of the fruit. 



Dried seeds require, in general, but little attention. The 

 farinaceous and leguminous sorts may be dried in a stove ; oily 

 seeds, fit for making emulsions, must not be dried by heat, but 

 only in the free air, and even then they are liable to become 

 rancid. In general, all seeds keep best in their shells or other 

 integuments. Horny seeds, although highly dried, retain their 

 germinative faculty for a long time. 



Vegetables and their juices may also he preserved hy heating in 

 well-closed vessels. The substances to be preserved are to be put 

 into strong glass bottles, with necks of a proper size, corked with 

 the greatest care, luted with a mixture of lime and soft cheese, 

 spread on rags, and the whole bound down with wires across it. 

 The bottles are then inclosed separately in canvass bags, and put 

 into a copper of water, which is gradually heated till it boils, and 

 thus kept until it is presumed that the substances are, as it were, 

 boiled in their own water : the whole is then left to cool, and the 

 bottles are taken out and carefully examined before they are laid 

 by, lest they should have cracked, or the lute given way. 



Tlie preservation of fruit in water is, in some measure, similar 

 to the preceding. The fruit not quite ripe, pulse, or other sub- 

 stance, is put into wide-necked bottles, which are placed in a 

 copper of water nearly up to their mouths, and they are lightly 

 corked ; the water is then heated till it is very hot, but does not 

 scald, and this heat is kept up for hair an hour; the bottles are 

 then taken out, and immediately filled with boiling water to the 

 very brim, carefully corked, wired, placed on their sides, and 

 turned at first every week, but afterwards seldomer, to prevent 

 any part, in consequence of the bubble of air that forms in them, 

 from getting dry, and thus becoming mouldy. Some attempt to 

 preserve fruits, &c., without water, by heating the water-bath to 

 boiling, and corking the bottles while in the boiling water, but 

 this does not succeed so well, unless the fruit is very green ; and 

 the water is at any rate useful to put into pies. 



To pickle vegetables in brine. A brine is made of bay-salt, or 

 rather London's solid salt, thoroughly saturated, so that some of 

 the salt remains undissolved, and kept floating upon it by a frame, 

 or bung : this requires about 4 pounds of salt to the gallon of 

 water ; into this brine the substances to be preserved are plunged, 



