296 



beans; and he would certainly beat me 

 in the Limas, if he could so far over- 

 come his English prejudices, as to plant 

 them. I doubt whether a larger quantity 

 of onions was ever grown on the same 

 space on the earth's surface. Five years 

 ago, his garden was a wet, sandy swale, 

 where the muck had given the drab sand a 

 blueish tint. He began by cutting an open 

 ditch to let off surface water, so as to make 

 the land fit to plant in the spring; hereto- 

 fore it had not been dry enough to plant 

 before the middle of June ; his crops were 

 better, but not large or early. He now 

 runs tile drains 2£ feet deep, and 40 feet 

 apart through the lot ; one of them was uti- 

 der his large onion bed. The onions were 

 planted in rows twelve inches apart ; the 

 space is only ten inches after the onions 

 are grown. In these rows the onions were 

 from the diameter of a dollar to that of a 

 half dollar, and some smaller; they not 

 only touched each other in the rows, but 

 most of them were turned up edgewise, 

 and still there was not space enough be- 

 tween the onions, throughout a sixty foot 

 row, to place your finger. His tomatoes 

 were earlier and larger than common ; so 

 were his potatoes. His bean crop very 

 large ; but his corn and cabbages, though 

 excellent, were no better than is grow r n on 

 good heavy soils. 



" To the eye this man's soil was coarser 

 than a prairie soil, and a shade or two high- 

 er colored; but it was pulverulent, and 

 rich in that muck or organic matter it 

 had been collecting from the beginning. 

 Mr. Foster said his onions had not been 

 manured at all. A sub-soil of calcareous 

 clay here is several feet below the surface; 



being 

 need much 



and constantly applied nitrogenous manures 

 to make them anything like as productive. 

 Here in this drained mucky swale, English 

 turnips in part distanced worms and grew 

 w 7 ell ; but all English, as Foster is, he 

 had sweet corn growing in drills, as a sec- 

 ond crop, after peas and early potatoes. 

 He says his cow prefers corn fodder to 

 pithy turnips, and it yields much more 

 in bulk." — Genesee Farmer. 



the neighboring knolls of drab sand 

 less aluminous than this swale 



Preserving Fruit by Hermetical Sealing". 



We are glad to see that year by year the 

 old practice of making large quantities of 

 preserves in every family, is declining; and 



that sweetmeats are giving place to a more 

 simple, healthful, and delicious article, 

 namely, fresh fruit preserved in its natural 

 state, by perfectly excluding the air. 



Fresh peaches, strawberries, &c, are 

 certainly a greater luxury in mid winter 

 than the same fruit preserved with sugar, 

 while the expense is less, and the^mount 

 of skill required no greater. 



The self-sealing tin cans, now exten- 

 sively introduced, are far superior to the 

 old kind, as the housewife can put them 

 up quickly and safely without the aid of a 

 tinner ; they are as easily opened as closed, 

 and the same cans will do for successive 

 years. These self-sealing cans are made 

 in different ways. Some are sealed by 

 screwing a cork upon a rubber compress 

 and applying melted bees-wax; others by 

 warming the cover and pressing into a rim 

 of cement, which surrounds the top of the 

 can ; others again are sealed with a pecu- 

 liar kind of soft sodder. 



The chief agent in the work of preser- 

 vation is heat. If after the application of 

 heat for a certain time, (by which process 

 the air is expelled,) the article be sealed 

 up hermetically, it will remain unchanged 

 for an indefinite period. We will briefly 

 describe the method of putting up fruit in 

 this manner, as given by several manufac- 

 turers : 



First, select good fresh fruit or vegeta- 

 bles. Stale and fermented articles can 

 never be preserved. Vegetables decom- 

 posing quick, such as green corn, green 

 peas, asparagus, should be preserved within 

 six hours after being picked, particularly in 

 hot weather. Berries always within twen- 

 ty-four hours. Peaches, quinces, pears, 

 apples, should be pealed, and the seeds re- 

 moved before preserving. 



Vegetables should be partly cooked first. 

 Such as corn, peas, and potatoes, should 

 be boiled a half an hour ; asparagus, a 

 quarter hour. To vegetables, add a half a 

 pint of the water they are cooked in to the 

 quart. 



Fill the can. with ripe fruit, adding, if 

 desired, a little sugar — simply enough to 

 render the fruit palatable, and set in a ves- 

 sel of water, (warm or cold.) Let the 

 water boil, and continue boiling until the 

 fruit is well heated through — say for a half 

 an hour. Direction has been given to 

 simply let the water boil but such direction 

 is defective, as at this time the fruit in the 



