l will become luminous; and if the bottle be well
closed, it will preserve its illuminative power for several months.

PICKLE. For hams, tongues, or beef, a pickle may be made that will keep
for years, if boiled and skimmed as often as it is used. Provide a deep
earthen glazed pan that will hold four gallons, having a cover that will
fit close. Put into it two gallons of spring water, two pounds of coarse
sugar, two pounds of bay salt, two pounds and a half of common salt, and
half a pound of salt petre. Keep the beef or hams as long as they will
bear, before they are put into the pickle; sprinkle them with coarse
sugar in a pan, and let them drain. Then rub them well with the pickle,
and pack them in close, putting as much as the pan will hold, so that
the pickle may cover them. The pickle is not to be boiled at first. A
small ham may be fourteen days, a large one three weeks, a tongue twelve
days, and beef in proportion to its size. They will eat well out of the
pickle without drying. When they are to be dried, let each be drained
over the pan; and when it will drop no longer, take a clean sponge and
dry it thoroughly. Six or eight hours will smoke them, and there should
be only a little saw-dust and wet straw used for this purpose; but if
put into a baker's chimney, they should be sown up in a coarse cloth,
and hang a week.

PICKLES. The free or frequent use of pickles is by no means to be
recommended, where any regard is paid to health. In general they are the
mere vehicles for taking a certain portion of vinegar and spice, and in
the crisp state in which they are most admired are often indigestible,
and of course pernicious. The pickle made to preserve cucumbers and
mangoes, is generally so strongly impregnated with garlic, mustard, and
spice, that the original flavour of the vegetable, is quite overpowered,
and the vegetable itself becomes the mere absorbent of these foreign
ingredients. But if pickles must still be regarded for the sake of the
palate, whatever becomes of the stomach, it will be necessary to watch
carefully the proper season for gathering and preparing the various
articles intended to be preserved. Frequently it happens, after the
first week that walnuts come in season, that they become hard and
shelled, especially if the weather be hot and dry; it is therefore
necessary to purchase them as soon as they first appear at market; or in
the course of a few months after being pickled, the nuts may