112 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



— and a valuable one — of this plant is, that it may remain in the fields all 

 winter, the air, the snow, frost and rain rotting it effectually, without in- 

 jury to the fiber. In the flower garden, the Melilotus is already wqII 

 known and appreciated for its delicate flower and agreeable and lasting' 

 perfume. 



A Cheap Cooking Vessel for Stock, or Heating Water. 



Mr. J. S. Woodard, Hess Rinid, Niagara county. New York, gives the 

 following directions for making a useful farm implement : 



" We have in this vicinity a cooking apparatus fur cooking hog feed, 

 which is very cheap and simple, and is worth a score of stove kettles ; it 

 may be new to some. To make one, get a sheet of No. 18 iron — 32, 34, or 

 36 inches wide, and about 7 feet long ; take 2-inch pine planks about two 

 feet wide, and make a box a little flaring at the top, and wide and long 

 enough so that the bottom sheet will cover, and prf>ject half an inch on 

 each side and end ; let the ends into, the sides | or ^-inch in making tho 

 box, and put it together in white lead and oil, and put three or four 

 |-inch iron rods through the sides, across the ends outside of the ends, and 

 then nail on the bottom sheet with two rows of fivepenny nails, the nails 

 about one inch apart in the rows and breaking joints, and bend up the 

 sheet where it projects, and your box is finished and will hold 25 or 80 

 bushels ; now take some flat stones or bricks, and make a small fireplace 

 eight inches narrower than your box is wide on the outside, and put across 

 at each end a piece of iron, so as to have a row of bricks across under the 

 end of your box, and at one end let the arch run out, so as to build a small 

 chimney, or put on a couple of joints of stove pipe, and you have a cooking 

 or scalding apparatus that will beat the world — try it and see." 



Preserving Fruit in Icehouses. 



Mr. John W. Keenj'^, Franklin, Lenawee county, Michigan, inquires 

 about the value of a plan for keeping fruit, which has been sold in that 

 State to individuals at $10 each. "It is to lay up ice in a ^yall around 

 the sides of the icehouse, leaving a space in the centre, to be filled with 

 boxes or barrels of fruit, packed in snow, where the seller of the 'patent 

 right' saj's it will keep an indefinite length of time." 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter. — I do not think that this plan will answer. Jf 

 the ice or snow melts, it will spoil the fruit. I have tried some experi- 

 ments in this way, but did not succeed as well as I have in the way I have 

 mentioned several times that I preserved my fruit last year. Fruit* has 

 been preserved in a perfectly dry, tight room, surrounded with ice. la 

 1861, pears, .melons, berries, etc., were put up in Ohio, and in June, '62, 

 were found perfectly sound. The process is a secret. 



.Solon Robinson. — We have had upun exhibition, before this Club, per- 

 fectly sweet fresh mutton brought from Algeria. 



Corn Bread, Corn Meal, and How to Preserve Corn. 



Mrs. Jane Mason writes from Medina, Ohio, the following testimony in 

 favor of a more general use of corn bread : 



"After several years' experience, I know there is nothing eaten nearly 

 so nutritious as corn meal, if properly cooked. I have noticed, after being 



