Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1874-10-13
MAKING AND PRESERVING CIDER. .-Profes

NuAhlNt AND hESEhflNt ClDEh.- IOlte-
sor Horstord, of Cambridge, recommends the
following plan for preserving cider sweet:
when the cider in the barrel is undergo
ing lively fermentation, add as much white
sugar as will be equal to half or three-quarters
of pound to each gallon Of cider, and let the
fermentation proceed until the liquid attans
the right taste to suit then add an eighth to
quarter of an ounce of sulphte not sui phate)
of lime to each gallon of cider in the cask first
mixing the powder in about quart of the
cider, and then pouring it back into the cask
and giving it thorough shaking or rolling
After standing bunged up for few days, for
the matter added to become incorporated with
the cider, it may be bottled or used from the
cask" The foregoing plan is recommended
solely to keep the cider sweet.
"Wheu the first fermentation is over, rack it
off into clean barrels through filter made by
taking round wooden box made Of inch pine
plank, three feet in diameter, and one foot four
inches deep; perforate its bottom with numer-
Gus nequarter inch auger holes, over which
should be laid coarse hemp bagglng. Fill in
the box for eight inches with pieces of char
coal-apimal charcoal is the best-about nat
size, and 90 the top of this place fouriuch
layer of clean washed sand, and cover all with
coarse hemp bagging. The cloth can be fire.
quently washed without disturbing the sand
and charcoal Before any cider is filtered
through pass a stream of clear water into the
filter for fifteen minutes, SO as to remove any
tine, loose particles CT charcoal that otherwise
would be mixed with the cider.
PRESERVING FRUT-As the season is at
hand for storing fruit for winter, We venture to
remind the reader Of a process in use by the
French for keeping 1t sound. We have more
than once referred to: this process, but it re-
qulres much haDmering to get an idea liked In
peoples heads The conditions are dry eel
lar, out of the reach OF frost, and such con-
trivance as will cause current OF air through
the fruit. A barrel perforated at both ends,
aud raised some inches above the ground in
dry cellar, meets the requirements. The phi
lo>ophy of the process consists 10 preventing
the sweating of the fruit, which induces decay,
or, if it takes place, to arrest it speedily by
the current OF air. A succession OF shelves, the
whole extent of the cellar wall, composed of
laths with spaces between them, and boxed 10
front SIX inches from the ground and six inches
opened at the top, would substitute the perfo-
rated barrel on larger scale. The shelves are
better than the barrel, and for delicate fruit
like pears, which should not touch one another,
are indispensable. By this means pears may
be kept till they come again. And so OF ap-
PIES and sweet potatoes With respect to
grapes the experiments have not been so salts
factory The French have tried different modes
If suspending the buuches but without any
uniformity of result. A method of preserving
grapes fresh aud sound through the winter s
sill great desideratum.
1t may be added that in gathering fruits of
all kinds, great care should be taken not to
buise them. This is more especially true OF
pears, which should be handled as tenderIy as
though they were eggs The slightest wound,
or even the breaking of the stem, is almost GER
tain to cause premature decay.
EATING MACARONI.-I remember my own at
tempt, not long ago, in the company OF Signors
Muzio and Strakosch The delicious vermicu-
lar TODD came on 10 coils one hundred feet long,
stuck my knife into it, cut off section, and
swallowed it.
Horror seized upon my companions.
"Corpo di Bacchi - exclaimed Muzlo.
''Pacidament 6zz-z! dam! 1t is sacre!-
sacrieege!'
As for Strakoscb be was petri6ed with grief
and indignation "Mein Gottp' he exclaimed,
fually, you must not coot him ~
| leaned back 10 despair, looking at the in-
termiuable food, aud watching my friends dis
pose oft They reeled it on their forks, put one
end of the glutiDous cable 10 their mouths, and
then paid it out into their stomachs without
bite.
The operation was beautiful one. 1t was
not so much like eating as it was like taking 10
stern-line; but it was marvel ofskill. tried
it.. felt the tender serpent sliding greasily
down my throat and coiling into my stomach 10
coucentric rings The sensation maddened me.
1t seemed to me that was eating stomach
puwp. A horrible idea seized me. What if |
should cough or choke with the line only halt
paid out-part of it in my stomach and part OF
it on the plate-and | anchored thus? | knew
that not an Italian would dare to lift a sacrl!c'
gious knife. and cut me loose. Strakosch, | knew
would dance around me and warn everybody
not TO coot him.
| do not hesitate to say that, when | could
stand it no longer, fed, paying out as van
ished, and leaving wake of macaronl not un-
like the tail of comet. "1rldcutO.
MYSTERY OF THE GREAT LAKES. Lake
Erie Is only sixty or seventy feet deep; but
Like Ontario, which is SOP feet Deep is 230
feet below the tide level of the ocean, or as low
as most parts OF the Gulf of St. Lawrence and
the bottoms OF Lake Huron, Michigan and Su-
peror, although the surface is so much higher
are all from their vast depth, on level with
the bottom Of Outaro. Now, as the dis.
charge through the River Detroit after allow.
Ing Tor the proOaDle portion carried on by
evaporation, does not appear by any means
equal to the quantity of water which the three
upper lakes receive, it has been conjectured
that subterraDean river may run from Lake
Superior. by the Huron, to Lake Ontario.
This conjecture is not improbable, and accounts
for the singular fact that salmon and herring
are caught 10 all the lakes com nunlcatlng with
The St. Lawrence, but in no others. AS the
Falls of Niagara must have always existed 1t
would puzzle the paturalist to say how these
hsh got into the upper lakes without some
such subterrapean river; moreover, any period