MITCHAM : ITS PHYSIC GARDENERS AND PLANTS. 
33 
tub, and when it is full, the juice is strained. This appears to us 
to be an error of the Mitcham manufacturers — the juice should 
be strained as it runs from the press, before it has had time to de- 
posit. 
The strained juice is then set aside for the deposit to take place. 
At Mitcham the deposite vessels are common tubs or half barrels 
about eighteen inches high. This part of the process it appears 
to us also admits of improvement. The deposite vessels should 
be made either of glazed earthenware or of glass. The elaterium 
is deposited from the juice in a few (usually three or four) 
hours. 
4. When the deposition of the elaterium has taken place, the 
supernatent liquor is carefully poured off. The deposit is then 
placed on calico cloths resting on hair sieves, and is there allowed 
to drain for about twelve hours. The drained deposite is then re- 
moved by a knife, and spread over small cloths and dried on can- 
vas frames in the drying stove. 
By one manufacturer we were informed that he dried the elate- 
rium on paper. 
Mr. Arthur tells us that one bushel or forty pounds of fruit yield 
about half an ounce of fine elaterium. This agrees with the ex- 
perience of Dr. Clutterbuck, who states that half a bushel yielded 
"less than two drachms of elaterium." Some persons, it is said, 
obtain as much as three-quarters of an ounce from the bushel of 
fruits ; but probably this is effected by the use of extra pressure, 
by which elaterium of inferior quality is procured. 
Good elaterium has a pale pea-green tint. Inferior qualities 
have a duller or sadder color. 
We were assured at Mitcham that the juice from which elate- 
rium has deposited is not used to obtain a second deposit, but is 
thrown away. 
The juice which is expelled along with the seeds scarcely be- 
comes clouded by exposure to the air, and is believed to be inert ; 
but that obtained by pressure, from the burst fruits, does become 
milky, and this deposite constitutes the elaterium. It follows 
therefore, that recently burst fruits are nearly, if not quite, as good 
for making elaterium as those which have not burst. 
REPORT OF AN EXPERIMENT ON FOUR BUSHELS OF CUCUMBERS. 
The fruits were sliced longitudinally, the pulp and seeds care- 
