Cob

“ Meal is sometimes mixed with hot water and fermented. All these are improvements in feeding, but these are not sufficient. Lately, a mill of cast iron has been invented, which converts both corn and cob into meal, and is used also by tanners in grinding their bark. This improvement is valuable. The cob, while it affords in [221] itself much nutriment, furnishes a degree of distension to the stomach, which is necessary to its proper action. If to this grinding of the cob and grain is superadded fermentation, or boiling, the economical process is nearly complete. ”

“ It is [Pg 121] made by taking a section of a common corn-cob some two or three inches in length, and boring or burning out with a hot iron the pith of the cob some two thirds of its length, and then boring or burning a small hole transversely through the cob to the base of the bowl already made, and inserting in this a small hollow reed or cane for a stem. These pipe-stems are long or short, from a few inches to two or three feet, according to the preference of those who are to use them. I have often been told by old smokers that no pipe was as pleasant or sweet as a cob-pipe. ”

“ The cob is of no value except to lighten the ration, but if there is nothing else to dilute the grain with, by all means use the cob. Oats, corn, hominy feed, which is a by-product in the manufacturing of corn meal, bran, which is not very valuable where plenty of alfalfa is fed, and oil meal form our principal feeds for dairy cows. Some get very good results by feeding ground speltz and barley, others by feeding ground rye. ”

“ Canning corn on the cob, except for exhibition purposes, is a waste of space. For home use remove the husks and silk, blanch tender ears 5 minutes, older ears 10 minutes, cold-dip, and cut from cob. Pack lightly to within 1⁄2 inch of the top of the jar, as corn swells during sterilization. Add 1 teaspoonful of salt and cover with boiling water, put on rubber and top, adjust top bail or screw top on with thumb and little finger. ”

“ Southern Little White Flint-Corn.—The kernels of this variety are considerably smaller than those of the preceding, and much resemble them in shape; but they are more firm and solid, contain more oil, and consequently are more valuable for feeding poultry and swine, and for human food. Although the cob is smaller in proportion to the size of the ears, the yield, per acre, is less abundant, and hence it is but little grown. ”

“ When the kernels are cut from the cob, they are opened, and the milk and other juices flow out, and become the liquid in which the kernels are to be cooked, and the milk and the other juices become a constituent part of the vegetable substance to be preserved.
Prompt action is required to accomplish the object; for, if the mixture is exposed to the air for any considerable time before the cans are filled, the chemical relations of the constituents will be changed, and the whole substance will become sour and unwholesome. ”

“ Always make a larger notch in the small end of the cob than in the large end, so that the large end of another cob may fit in it; for, when building, it is necessary to place small ends and large ends together, and never two large ends or two small ends, or the house will be unevenly balanced. ”

“ The cob is larger, and sometimes grows to the length of fourteen or fifteen inches, but the grain is so compact upon it, that two bushels of sound ears have yielded five pecks of shelled corn, weighing 62 lbs. to the bushel. With proper management, an acre of ground will produce from 100 to 120 bushels. As it abounds in oil, gives a good yield, and ripens at least two weeks earlier than the Canada corn, it has long been a favourite for culture at the North. ”

“ The solidity of cob walls depends much upon their not being hurried in the process of making them, for if hurried, the walls will surely be crippled, that is, they will swag or swerve from the perpendicular. It is usual to pare down the sides of each successive rise before another is added to it. ”

“ The timber built into old cob does not seem to decay. The walls are usually so dry, especially when plastered, that the wood is well preserved. The straw in the interior of old cob walls is often as bright as when put in. The straw in cob performs a similar function to hair in plaster. 42 Heather has sometimes been used instead of straw with good results.
42
LINTEL-BEARING CROSS-PIECE
The old practice was for beams, wall plates, joists, etc., to be just bedded on the cob, and for the cob to be filled in between the joists. ”

“ The cobs are often ground up for feed, but they are generally used for fuel and are also employed to a considerable extent in the manufacture of tobacco pipes. The principal and most common product of the grain is the flour, or cornmeal, which is either white or yellow, according to the variety of corn from which it is made. ”

“ We burned cobs and collected ash balls after every threshing day, unless hindered by storm or high wind. But even if the harvest was a good one, the ash balls that we got from the burned cobs for seasoning never lasted long. We were so fond of seasoning our food with them that every family had used up its store before the autumn had passed.
Winnowing
I have said that after the day’s threshing we stored the newly threshed grain for the night, either in the booth or in a bull boat in the earth lodge; and that we then fired the cobs that had accumulated during the day. ”

“ Two million bushels of cobs are wasted every year in the United States. Can't something be made out of them? This is the question that is agitating the chemists of the Carbohydrate Laboratory of the Department of Agriculture at Washington. They have found it possible to work up the corn cobs into glucose and xylose by heating with acid. But glucose can be more cheaply obtained from other starchy or woody materials and they cannot find a market for the xylose. This is a sort of a sugar but only about half as sweet as that from cane. ”

“ The cobs of Indian corn, which are now considered of little or no value, may yet share the same fate as many substances which, though formerly considered worthless, have become new mines of wealth, through the aid of chemistry. ”

“ Cobs are best, as giving a better flavor; and brands or chips of walnut wood are next best. Keeping a small fire a longer time is better than quicker smoking, as too much heat gives the hams a strong taste, and they are less sweet. ”

“ The brewer mingles poison in our beer, by boiling it in copper vessels. The sugar-baker employs copper pans. The pastry-cook bakes our tarts in copper moulds. The confectioner uses copper vessels. The oilman boils his pickles in copper or brass vessels, and verdigrise is plentifully formed by the action of the vinegar upon the metal.’” (P. 353, 354.) Moreover, “various kinds of food, used in domestic economy, are liable to become impregnated with lead.” ”

“ A second method is to put the vegetables into a copper vessel, the wall of which is connected with the negative pole of an electric current, the positive pole dips in a solution of salt in the same vessel, the current is allowed to pass for three minutes, and the vegetables are afterwards sterilised. Fruits are simply allowed to stand with water in copper vessels, the natural acidity of the juice dissolving sufficient copper. ”

“ Copper, which is sometimes introduced into distilled grain, or even malt spirits, in consequence of the soap employed in the process of distillation, may be detected best by the brown precipitate which it occasions with ferroprussiate of potash. No arsenic is ever used in this country. ”

“ If the patient be bilious, add 10 grains of rhubarb, and 4 of jalap, to the morning and evening draught.—Or: pour into one glass a table-spoonful of lemon juice, and dissolve in it a lump of sugar; dissolve 1⁄2 a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda in 2 table-spoonsful of water, in another glass: pour the two together, and drink in a state of effervescence. For delicate persons, a wine-glassful of sherry takes away the debilitating effect.
Coffee.
To be good must be made of a good kind, for poor, cheap coffee, though ever so strong, is not good. ”

“ The soda-water on general sale is frequently contaminated with copper and lead, produced from the action of the carbonic acid contained in the water on the metallic substances of which the apparatus in which it is made is constructed. ”

“ Coke, if properly prepared, should consist of pure carbon. Good coal should yield as much as 80 per cent. of coke, but owing to the unsatisfactory manner of its production, this proportion is seldom yielded, whilst the coke which is familiar to householders, being the residue left in the retorts after gas-making, usually contains so large a proportion of sulphur as to make its combustion almost offensive. ”

“ It is a well-known fact in brewing, that the quicker and stronger the operation of boiling is performed, the better such beer will preserve, and the sooner it will become fine; although this opinion is combated by many, experience has proved it in my practice. I will suppose the copper you are about to set to contain two thousand gallons, the diameter of its bottom, five feet; let your fire blocks, if possible, be of soapstone, one for each side, and one for the end, of sufficient thickness and length, and full twelve inches deep, to the top of your sleepers ”

“ In the morning pour ten gallons of water into the copper, and having strained the mixture of lime and soda well, taking great care not to disturb the settlings, put it, together with the soap, into the water, and make the whole boil before putting in the clothes. A plate should be placed at the bottom of the copper to prevent the clothes from burning.
Boil each lot of clothes from half an hour to an hour. Then rinse them well in cold blue water. When dry they will be beautifully white. ”

“ As in fermentation, spontaneous or excited, there is a sensible escape of carbonic acid gas, or fixed air, it may not be improper to note, that fermentable, or saccharine matter, consists of about twenty-eight pounds of carbon, eight pounds of hydrogen, and sixty-four pounds of oxygen, reducible into fixed, inflammable, and vital air, weighing one hundred subtile pounds in toto, or that every one hundred subtile pounds of saccharine matter consists of such proportions of these airs and gasses. ”

“ Coffee is said to produce cerebral anæmia, while opium and alcohol cause congestion; but this theory still needs confirmation. Nevertheless, the part played by coffee in general nutrition is very well understood. It retards organic combustion, and hence it is an aliment d'epargne—a food-stuff that effects a saving of other food-stuffs. In the normal state there is always going on within our tissues a multitude of chemical actions, the final result of which is heat-production and liberation of carbonic acid. ”

“ Cooking utensils made of copper are not to be recommended from the point of healthfulness, although many cooks esteem them because copper is a better conductor of heat than iron or tin. The acids of many fruits combine with copper to form extremely poisonous substances. Fatty substances, as well as salt and sugar, act upon copper to a greater or less degree, also vegetables containing sulfur in their composition and produce harmful compounds. ”

“ About 500 kilogrammes of water are made to boil in a copper, and 600 kilogrammes of crystallized carbonate of soda are dissolved in it by successive additions of 20 kilogrammes. The solution being maintained at nearly the boiling point, 500 kilogrammes of the crystallized boracic acid of Tuscany are introduced, in successive portions. At each addition of about 10 kilogrammes, a lively effervescence ensues, on which account the copper should be of much greater capacity than is sufficient to contain the liquors. ”

“ I think that the first portions of the acid are due to a combination of the carbon of the ferment with the oxygen of the sugar, and that it is by carrying off a portion of oxygen from the last that the ferment causes the fermentation to commence the equilibrium between the principles of the sugar being disturbed, they combine afresh to form carbonic acid and alcohol. ”

“ Such solid substances as peas are conveniently mashed up into a paste with water and ClH; an aliquot part is carefully weighed and put in a platinum dish, connected, as before described, with a battery; at the end of from twelve to twenty-four hours all the copper is deposited, and the dish with its film dried and weighed. The weight of the clean dish, minus the coppered dish, of course equals the copper. Fat and oils are best thoroughly washed with hot acid water, which will, if properly performed, extract all the copper. ”

“ To discover the method of procuring this substance could not be difficult, as that metal contracts a green rust oftener than is wished, when in the least exposed to acids. The ancients, for this purpose, used either vessels and plates of copper, or only shavings and filings; and the acid they employed was either the sourest vinegar, or the sour remains left when they made wine; such as grapes become sour, or the stalks and skins after the juice had been pressed from them463. ”

“ The vegetables, thus prepared, are next put into copper vessels and boiled, in the proportion of 1lb. to 2 gallons of water, for four or five hours; half or three quarters of an ounce of soda or pearl-ashes, or half a pint of volatile alkali, being added to every pound. ”

“ When they come out of the madder bath they are much loaded with colour. They are cleared by a boil of half an hour in bran, then turned out into cold water, and rinsed. A copper must be now mounted with 3 pounds of soap, 1 ounce of solution of tin, and 2 pailsful of bran, in which the goods are to be boiled for half an hour, then rinsed, and passed through a very dilute sulphuric acid bath. ”

“ INSTRUCTION FOR GILDING Dissolve a gold dollar in nitro-muriatic acid,— (2 ozs. muriatic to 1 of nitric,) then dissolve a 1/4 lb. of copperas in a pint of hot water, and pour it into the dish containing the gold and acid, pouring in a little at a time, till it stops boiling or foaming up; then let it stand and settle about six hours; then strain off the copperas-water carefully, and the gold will appear like a brown or dark yellow powder in the bottom of the dish. ”