Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Preservation

PRESERVATION, in domestic economy, is the art of preserving animal and vegetable substances, with the least trouble and expence.

In the articles Bacon, Beef, Butter, Cheese, Flesh-meat, Pickle, &c. we have already pointed out various new and effectual contrivances for preventing the corruption of animal food: and though we likewise treat, in the progress of the alphabet, on the most useful vegetable bodies, and introduce the best methods of preserving them in a fresh state, yet we cannot neglect this opportunity of communicating to our readers a general fact of the utmost importance to the maritime interest of this country; and which appears to have hitherto escaped the notice of British journalists.

As we never attribute the merit of a new discovery to any person but the original inventor (let him be a sworn patentee or a mere adventurer), we shall begin our narrative with the name of a philanthropic Livonian clergyman, Mr. Eisen, who, in the year 1772, published a few sheets in the German language, of which the following is the substance:—After numberless experiments made with a view to ascertain the relative moisture contained in different plants, this excellent man has clearly convinced the world, by actual proofs laid before the late Freceric the Great of Prussia, that "vegetables may be preserved in their natural state, so as to retain their juices, their colour, taste, and alimentary properties, for a series of years, by a proper method of drying and packing them."—As we propose to describe this simple process, under the article Vegetables, let it suffice to observe, that eight tons, or 32,000 pounds of fresh herbs and roots, may thus be concentrated into the compass of 16 cwt. or the twentieth part of their bulk, so that a single horse may remove with ease, what otherwise would have required the united efforts of twenty.