No. 129.] 517 



American Institute, 



Farmers' Club, March 30t/i, 1852. \ 



Hon. Robert Swift Livingston in the chair j H. Meigs, Sec- 

 retary. 



The Secretary, read the following papers prepared by him. 



[Annales de la Societe Centrale D' Horticulture, Paris, September, 1851. Trarslation by 

 H. Meigs, December;, 19j 1851.] 



Report by Mr. Payen on the Preserved Food of Mr. Masson. 



Gentlemen — The remarkable invention, born in your midst, to 

 which I alluded on opening this session of the society, received 

 at its very origin your encouraging approbation and the aid and 

 support of many of your members, for we all comprehended the 

 great value of the object. 



Mr. Masson, the author of these ingenious processes so simple 

 and so economical, has long ago proposed the methods of preserv- 

 ing vegetables by drying. He contrived to manage the heat so 

 as not to let it be greater than 40** Centigrade, i. e., about 106° 

 of Fahrenheit — so high in fact that the juices of the plants would 

 not coagulate and, therefore, would remain in such a state that 

 they would afterwards resume the water and soften their tissues j 

 and these, on being boiled, would be as fresh vegetables, the taste 

 and smell (la saveur et I'arome) agreeable and hardly modliied. 

 The articles prepared in this way unite all the desirable qualities 

 of fresh ones — these take up too much room in a vessel besides 

 not keeping. M. Masson has obtained all this by compressing 

 them into regular cakes as hard as beech wood ; these are packed 

 in boxes and stowed away so as not to incumber the vessel on long 

 voyages. 



This new process differs from the old plan of Mr. Appert, our 

 fellow-citizen, in use from twenty-five to forty years among all 

 commercial people, for it furnishes the vegetables in one-tenth 

 part of the volume of the Appert method, and experience has 

 proved the durability of these cakes ; they have been on board 

 ship on long voyages of four years and found to be excellent. 



