THE CULTIVATOR. 105 
with that of the sugar cane, when the price of the last is in com¬ 
merce one franc and twenty centimes per demi-ddllogramme:’’ 
(=18i cents per pound, reference being had to refined sugar.) 
We have been tedious, we are afraid, in our notice of and ex¬ 
tracts from this work. Yet we shall have occasion hereafter fre¬ 
quently to refer to the principles of agricultural science which it 
illustrates. Its general circulation Cannot but have the happiest 
effect in instructing our farmers, should it fail in the more desira¬ 
ble object of enlightening cur statesmen and legislators. 
PRESERVING MEATS. 
The intrinsic value of salted meats, whether for family use or 
for market, depends materially upon the manner in which they are 
preserved. An excess of salt renders lean meats, as beef and 
hams, hard, tough and unpalatable, besides destroying much of 
their nutritious properties; while too little salt, or an equivalent 
of some other antisceptic, will not preserve them in a healthful 
state. It is as easy and as cheap to preserve meats well, as it is 
to do it badly, if we are furnished with good rules, and duly ob¬ 
serve them. There are, no doubt, many rules adapted to this end. 
We have tried many, and have finally, for some years, adopted, 
with perfect satisfaction, for family use, the pickle which we give 
below, for the curing of beef and hams. It is said to be equally 
good for pork, though we have not used it for this purpose, as we 
lay down none but the fat part of the hog, which is not injured 
by an excess of salt. This has been denominated the 
Knickerbocker Pickle .—Take six gallons of water, nine pounds 
of salt, three pounds coarse brown sugar, one quart of molasses, 
three.ounces salt petre and one ounce pearlash—mix and boil the 
whole well, taking care to skim off all the impurities which rise 
to the surface. This constitutes the pickle. When the meat is 
cut, it should be slightly rubbed with fine salt, and suffered to lay 
a day or two that the salt may extract the blood; it may then be 
packed tight in the cask, and the pickle, having become cold, 
may be turned upon and should cover the meat. A follower, to 
fit the inside of the cask, should then be laid on, and a weight put 
on it, in order to keep the meat at all times covered with pickle. 
The sugar may be omitted without material detriment. In the 
spring the pickle must be turned off, boiled with some additional 
salt and molasses, skimmed, and when cold, returned to the cask. 
For domestic use, beef and pork hams should not be salted the 
day the animals are killed, but kept until its fibre has become 
short and tender, as these changes do not take place after it has 
been acted upon by the salt. 
Meat that is to be dried and smoked, requires less salt than that 
which is to remain in pickle, on account of the preserving qualities 
of pyrolignic acid, which is supplied by the smoke of the wood. The 
great art in smoking meat well, seems to consist in having the meat 
dried by smoke, and not by heat. The hams of Westphalia and the 
smoked beef of Hamburgh, which are unrivalled in reputation, are 
managed in this way. The Westphalian farmers have a closet in the 
garret, joining the chimney, made tight, to retain smoke, in which 
they hang their hams and bacon to'dry, out of the effect of the 
heat of the fire. Two apertures are made from the closet into the 
chimney, and a place is made for an iron stopper to be thrust into 
the funnel of the chimney, to force the smoke through the lower 
hole into the closet. The upper hole must not be too big, because 
the closet must be always full of smoke, and that from wood fires. 
The Hamburgh method of making their superior smoked beef 
is this : Fires of oak chips are built in the cellars, from whence 
the smoke is conveyed by two chimnies into the fourth story, and 
thrown into a chamber by two openings placed opposite to each 
other. The size of the chamber is proportioned to the quantity 
of meat to be smoked, but the ceiling is not raised more than five 
feet and a half from the floor. Above this chamber there is ano¬ 
ther made with boards, into which the smoke passes through a hole 
in the ceiling of the first, whence it escapes by openings formed 
in the sides. The pieces of meat are hung up at the distance of a 
foot and a half from each other, and a fire is kept up night and 
day for a month or six weeks, according to the size of the pieces. 
PRESERVING ROOTS. 
We find in Chaptal’s “ Chemistry applied to Agriculture,” an 
excellent chapter on the preservation of animaf and vegetable 
substances. We extract the following from the preliminary re¬ 
marks. J 
Vol. II. 14 
“ The nature of all bodies which have ceased to live or vegetate, are chang¬ 
ed, as soon as the physical or chemical laws, by which they were governed 
cease to act; the elements ol which they were composed then form new com¬ 
binations, and consequently new substances. 
“ Whilst an animal lives, or a plant vegetates, the laws of chemical affinity 
ar ■ continually modified in its organs by the laws of vitality ; but when the 
animal or plant ceases to live, it becomes entirely subject to the laws of 
chemical affinity, by which alone Us decomposition ts effected. 
“ The principles of the atmospheric air w hich is imbibed by the organs of 
living bodies, whether animal or vegetable, are decomposed and assimilated 
by them, w hilst dead dodies are decomposed by its action. Heat is the most 
puu erful stimulant of the vital functions, yet it becomes, after death, one of 
the most active agents in the work of destruction. Our efforts, then, for the 
preservation of bodies, ought to be directed to counteracting or governing those 
chemical or physical agents, from the action of which they suffer; anti we 
shall see that all the methods which have been successful, are those which 
have been formed upon this principle. 
“ The chemical agents, which exert the most pow erful influence overthe pro¬ 
ducts of the earth, are air, water and heat ; the action of these, however, is not 
equally powerful over all classes of plants ; the soft and watery, nnd those which 
i pp.oaeh the nearest to animal matter, decompose most readily: the principles of 
such are less coherent, less strongly 7 united than that of others ; so that the ac¬ 
tion of disorganizing agents upon them is prompt and effectual. 
“ All the methods now employed for the preservation of bodies, consist in 
so far changing their nature, as to deprive them of the elements of destruction 
contained within their own organs ; or in secluding the substances to be pre¬ 
served front contact with the destructive agents mentioned in the preceding 
paragraph ; or in causing them to imbibe certain other substances, the anti-pu¬ 
trescent qualities of which counteract all action, whether of internal or ex¬ 
ternal agents. 
“ In all vegetable products, water exists in two different states, one part of 
it being found free, and the other in a state of true combination ; the first por¬ 
tion, not being confined except by the covering of the vegetable, evaporates 
at the temperature of the atmosphere ; the second is set free only at a tempe¬ 
rature sufficiently high to decompose the substances containing it : the first, 
though foreign to the composition of the vegetable, enters into every part of 
it, dissolving some of its principles, serving as a vehicle for air and heat, and 
being converted by cold into ice ; by these several properties it greatly facili¬ 
tates decomposition ; the second portion, from which no evil of the kind ari¬ 
ses, is found combined and solidified in the plants, and its action is thus neu¬ 
tralized.” 
Drying fruits, then, in order to preserve them, consists in de¬ 
priving' them of the w r ater contained in them in a free state. This 
may be done by subjecting them to heat not exceeding 95 to 113° 
—either by exposing them to the sun, or in a stove room, or in 
ovens, which latter practice is resorted to, even in the warmest 
countries, at the commencement of the drying process. In pre¬ 
serving the apple, for instance, our author adds, that by depriving 
their surface of all moisture before putting them up ; keeping 
them in dry places, where the temperature will be constantly be¬ 
tween 50 and 54°, and by separating the fruits that they shall not 
come in contact, they may sometimes be preserved 18 months. 
The farmer in Schoharie, who has been in the habit of bringing 
the Spitzenbergh to our market on the 4th of July, owes his suc¬ 
cess to the observance of these rules. 
On the preservation of the fruits of the earth by secluding them 
from the action of air, water and heut, M. Chaptal enumerates the 
following leading causes of decay. 
“ The atmospheric air, coming in contact with fruits, depives them of their 
carbon, and forms carbonic acid. 
“ Fruits exposed to the solvent action of water suffer decomposition, by hav¬ 
ing the affinity existing between their constituent principles weakened, and at 
length destroyed. 
“ Heat dilates the particles of bodies, and thus diminishes the force of cohe¬ 
sion and attraction, and favors the admission of air and water. 
“ The combined action of these three agents produces very speedy decom¬ 
position ; the effect produced by any one of them is slower, and the results 
different. So that in order to preserve fruits from decomposition, it is neces¬ 
sary to guard them from the power of these three destroyers.” 
Practically applied, these axioms teach, that to preserve roots 
in good condition, the following precautions should be observed : 
1. That their surfaces be entirely freed from moisture before 
they are housed or buried, and that they be deposited in a dry si¬ 
tuation, where water will not have access to them. 
2. That they be excluded from the air, by burying them in dry 
earth, or slightly covering them in the cellar with earth. And, 
3. That they be kept in a cool temperature—the best ranging 
from 34 to 45 degrees. 
We frequently hear housekeepers complain, that their potatoes, 
turnips and other vegetables soon deteriorate, and lose their fine 
flavor, after they have been a short time in their cellars. This is 
a natural consequence of the injudicious way in which they are 
too frequently kept—exposed to the atmosphere, and to a high 
temperature, in a cellar adjoining the kitchen, or perhaps in the 
kitchen itself Again, potatoes or turnips buried in a wet condi- 
