464 [Assembly 



all the decayed or decaying ones picked out, and the shoots of 

 those remaining rubbed off. If frost comes in contact with them, 

 it at once converts tlie starch into sugar, and the potato becomes 

 sweet and unfit to be eaten by man. It is then in the proper 

 state to be employed for the purposes of distillation into spirits. 

 In Scotland they are used WMth barley. In London they are 

 manufactured into bread by the bakers. The fecula is frequent- 

 ly sold there as arrow-root. It makes good starch, but is less nu- 

 tritious than the potato, from the fact that the saccharine matter 

 and albumen is separated from it. I sold during the past sum- 

 mer quantities of potatoes for bakers, for the purpose of being 

 mixed with wheat flour for bread. 



Cabbages may be preserved in various ways for winter con- 

 sumption ; many gardeners pull t}iem carefully, and place the 

 tops down and the roots ifp in the drill where they w^ere grown. 

 Others bury the roots, standing the cabbages close together, as 

 deep as the first set of leaves, and cover them with straw or Any 

 such substance. By a few they are buried in the ground beyond 

 the action of frost. They may be kept perfectly by freezing them 

 in ice in the fall, and let them remain in that state all wanter. This 

 is one of our best, most wholesome, and nutritive vegetables, and 

 supplies a very valuable mixture with the food of animals. They 

 are supposed to contain an essential oil, which is said to produce 

 bad effects when eaten by dyspeptic persons. This tribe of plants 

 putrify raj»idly under certain circumstances; and when they de- 

 compose produce an extremely offensive odor, owing, probably, 

 to the nitrogen it has been proved by analysis to contain. The 

 cabbage was known to the Romans, and was by them considered 

 a delicious vegetable. They introduced it into Germany and 

 Britain. Cromwell's soldiers carried it into Scotland, where fur 

 a long time it was the only garden vegetable they had. 



The garden bean came originally from Asia. They may be 

 pulled green, placed in a wooden tub, and covered with salt 

 brine ; by this simple process I am enabled to have beans all 

 winter in the same perfection that I have them in the summer. 

 The bean contains more nutritious matter than the generality of 

 vegetables, eighty-four per cent, is nutritive, of whicli fifty per 

 cent, is pure farina, the balance mucilage and gluten. Eaten 



