Chapter M: E. James: ‘How to Decorate our Ceilings, Walls, and Floors.’ (1)

London, 1883. 4_s._

Rhoda and Agnes Garrett: ‘Suggestions for House Decoration in Painting, Woodwork, and Furniture.’ London, 1876. 2_s._ 6_d._

_THE LARDER_

Much attention has been given in recent years to the art of conserving foods. The subject really divides itself into 3 distinct branches, viz.: (_a_) Keeping foods _fresh_ for a limited time, (_b_) _storing_ them without changing their character, and (_c_) submitting them to a _curing_ process which will preserve them for an unlimited time.

(_a_) _Keeping foods fresh for a limited time._

Some very useful remarks on this point were published by Miss Ascham in the _Exchange and Mart_ a short time since, and will bear repetition.

A housewife’s duty is to prevent waste. She must therefore know what is likely to go to waste and why, or perhaps she will do just what is wanted to spoil things which would have kept a little longer if they had been left alone. Most things in the larder are perishable, but not all alike.

Meat will keep three weeks in dry, frosty weather, and more than a week in cold dry weather, but not one week in damp, and hardly a day in very hot weather. If it has been frozen, it must lie in a rather warm place 3-4 hours before it is cooked. Meat should be taken down from the hooks every day, well looked over and wiped dry, and the hooks scalded and dried before the meat is put up again. Do not flour it. In very hot weather it is sometimes necessary to rub salt over the outside of a joint which is not to be cooked that day; but putting into a pan of treacle is much better, only it requires care, so as not to leave bits of fat, &c., in the pan when you take out the meat, and plenty of cold water to wash off what sticks to the joint when it comes out. It must, however, be carefully looked over when it comes from the butcher, and any doubtful bits pared off and burnt. If meat shows signs of “turning,” it must at once be put into a very hot oven for ½ hour, so as to be partly cooked. If it has really spoilt, nothing will save it, because the inside of the joint is then bad; but if it is browned, not just scorched, in time, the inside will be found perfectly nice. Of course, in a doubtful case, it may all be sliced up and fried; but then, as a joint, it is spoilt.

The dripping from a half-spoilt joint is useless for food, and the bone will certainly spoil soup. Some cooks will plunge the meat into boiling water to save it, but this additional wetting is much more likely to hasten the catastrophe. In hot weather every bone must be baked, whether it is to make stock that day or not. Soup is just as good from baked bones as from raw ones. Every bone that has been boiled must be placed in a sharp heat and quite dried, and “scraps” which would help to make stock must be burnt if the cook has no time or room to make it. For one little bone is enough to spoil all the milk and cream, and will cause all perishable things in the larder to be just ready to decay.

The microscope helps us to understand the amazing rapidity with which germs multiply and diffuse themselves, but no one is yet able to say where their venom stops; probably they do harm to the entire house at the least. If bones are thoroughly dried, they will do no harm. All fat and suet should be cooked as soon as possible after it comes into the house; it should be wiped, sliced thin, and boiled for 2-3 hours, then strained, and the skin, which seems like leather, burnt in the middle of a hot fire. As soon as the fat is hard, it should be removed from the gravy, soup, or stock, wiped dry, and folded in thin paper. In very hot weather, sometimes it will not cake. Then a plate must be spared for it. The superfluous fat from a joint reduced to mince should be treated in the same way.

Fish must be cooked as soon as possible after it is caught. If, however, there is more than can be eaten in one day, the superfluous part should be boiled for 5 minutes, even if it is to be fried afterwards--it can be dried: but nearly all fish is very nice stewed like eels, with the same sauce; parboiled fish is as good this way as if it were quite fresh.

It is said that Condy’s fluid will perfectly cleanse meat or fish just beginning to taint on the outside; but prevention is much better than cure. Never allow any meat or fish to lie if you can hang it up.

Game and poultry should be drawn, but not plucked or skinned, dried inside, and hung head upward.

Milk is the most troublesome article in the larder, and really wants a little safe to itself. It “takes up” the slightest suspicion of taint, and becomes most objectionable without turning sour. City people, at any rate, should boil the milk as soon as it comes in, from April to December. Then it should be strained into a clean flat pan, which must be scalded and rinsed with, first, a little soda, and then clean water, every time it is used. It is a help to mistress and maid to have two pans--one brown, one white--to use on alternate days, so as to ensure time for purification. Country milk a little sour may be used for a pudding, or to make scones (½ pint to 1 lb. of oatmeal or brown meal, into which you have mixed ¼ oz. soda carbonate); but the milk which has been rattled about from 2 A.M. to 8 or 9 generally seems good for nothing when stale. In case of serious illness in hot weather, or when a young child’s nourishment is in question, ice is necessary. In default of “professional” apparatus, tie up as much ice as half a yard of flannel will hold, pass a stout lath through the string, and lay it across a metal tub; oval is more convenient than round. The ice will hang down and drip in the middle of the tub, and jugs of milk, bottles of soda water, or anything else will stand at the ends. Cover the tub, stick and all, with a thick board, and that with a damp, almost wet cloth. The milk may be boiled first, but must, of course, be cold before it is put with the ice. A damp cloth, without ice, keeps things much cooler than they are when uncovered.

Cheese, uncut, only needs to be kept dry. After it is cut, it should be wrapped in a buttered paper scraped almost dry. Butter may be rendered less troublesome in summer by being covered with a huge flower-pot large enough to enclose the plate and rest in a tray in which there is some cold water. Leaving butter in water spoils it. Bread should be covered closely from the air. The pans want wiping once or twice a week, and then heating very hot; the bread must not be put in again until the pan is cold, nor warm bread ever covered up. Baker’s bread often acquires a most disagreeable smell and taste if these precautions are neglected.

All vegetables, when cut, may be kept fresh by putting the stalks into water. Servants generally insist on immersing them, which favours decomposition. Parsley in particular can seldom be guarded from a watery grave. Carrots, turnips, and the like, if placed in layers in a box of sand, will keep for many weeks, if not months. Clean new-laid eggs will keep quite fresh for months if buried in dried salt well closed. Boiled potatoes ought to be laid out on a plate, and are then as good for frying or mashing as if they were freshly cooked. Servants have an unaccountable fancy for throwing them away, or, if desired to fry them, chopping and mashing them first, which entirely spoils them. If left heaped up, they will often spoil in one night, and must be burnt. No vegetables should be put into soup until the day that it is to be used. If any soup, complete, is left, it must be sharply boiled the next morning, and put into a fresh, clean pan. The grey earthenware jars made for salt are most valuable for such purposes and for keeping viands hot or stewing things. Chopped spinach can be warmed in one of them, and, as it takes time to prepare, may be boiled, &c., the day before, and thus served in perfection at the early dinner or luncheon. Cabbage, French beans, and vegetable marrows are better dressed as salad if they have cooled, and in hot weather are almost as treacherous for keeping as shell-fish.

Fruit, like vegetables, will keep very fresh if you can manage to put the stalk into water, only it must not be in a close or dark place. When apples, oranges, pears, lemons, &c., are to be stored, they must not touch each other, and must be protected from heat, cold, and damp as much as possible; sunshine is not desirable. It would be easy, if an amateur carpenter was at hand, to make a frame of laths, like a Venetian blind, which would contain a very large quantity of such fruit, and take up hardly any room. Flour and meal, sago, macaroni, semolina, and all like substances, are sometimes attacked by mites. They are so small as to be invisible singly, but a peculiar fine powder is to be seen at the top of the farina, and is not motionless. There is also a smell something like honey or fermentation. They never appear in a dry storeroom, though they are sometimes brought from the grocer’s. The only thing to be done is to burn the infected store, and heat the jar almost red hot before using it again. (_Exchange and Mart._)

Every one is familiar with the beneficial influence of ice in preserving foods in hot weather. It is the active medium in the various kinds of refrigerating safes now in use. But the first matter is to secure a supply of ice for summer use, unless it is to be bought of the ice merchant at enhanced prices. Various contrivances may be adopted with success, as enumerated below:--

(1) Build round a brick well, with a small grating for drain at bottom for the escape of water from melted ice. Cover the bottom with a thick layer of good wheat straw. Pack the ice in layers of ice and straw. Fix a wooden cover to the well.

(2) Fire-brick, from its feeble conducting power, is the best material to line an ice-house with. The house is generally made circular, and larger at the top than at the bottom, where a drain should be provided to run off any water that may accumulate. As small a surface of ice as possible should be exposed to the atmosphere, therefore each piece of ice should be dipped in water before stowing away, which, by the subsequent freezing of the pieces into one mass, will remain unmelted for a long time.

(3) Make a frame-house the requisite size, with its floor at least the thickness of the bottom scantling from the ground, thus leaving space for drainage and a roof to shed off the water. The boards of the wall should be closely joined to exclude air. Then build up the blocks of ice, cut in the coldest weather, as solid as possible, leaving 6 in. all round between them and the board walls; fill up all interstices between the blocks with broken ice, and in a very cold day or night pour water over the whole, so that it may freeze into a solid block; shut it up till wanted, only leaving a few small holes for ventilation under the roof, which should be 6 in. above the top of the ice. It is not dry heat or sunshine that is the worst enemy of ice, but water and damp air. If all the drainage is carried promptly off below, and the damp vapour generated by the ice is allowed to escape above, the column of cold air between the sides of the close ice-house and the cube of ice will protect it much better than it is protected in underground ice-houses, which can neither be drained nor ventilated; sawdust also will get damp, in which case it is much worse than nothing.

(4) An improved sort of ice-house, recommended by Bailey, gardener at Nuneham Park, Oxford, is shown in plan and section in Fig. 65, where the dotted line indicates the ground level. The well or receptacle for the ice _a_ is 10 ft. 6 in. wide at the base, and 3 ft. wider near the top; the walls are hollow, the outer portion being built of dry rough stone, and the inner wall and dome _f_ of brick. The outer wall _e_ might be replaced by a puddling of clay, carried up as the work proceeds. Over the top is a mound of clay and soil _g_, planted with shrubs to keep the surface cool in summer. The drain _i_ carries off the water formed by the melted ice, and is provided with a trap _h_ to prevent the ingress of air through the drain. There is a porch or lobby _b_ provided with outer and inner doors _c_; and apertures at _d_, to get rid of the condensed moisture, which, if not removed, would waste the ice. These ventilating doors should be opened every night, and closed again early in the morning. The most important conditions to be secured are dryness of the soil and enclosed atmosphere, compactness in the body of ice, which should be broken fine and closely rammed, and exclusion as far as possible of air. (_Gard. Mag. Bot._)

(5) A very cheap way of storing ice has been described by Pearson of Kinlet. The ice-stack is made on sloping ground close to the pond whence the ice is derived. The ice is beaten small, well rammed, and gradually worked up into a cone or mound 15 ft. high, with a base of 27 ft., and protected by a compact covering of fern 3 ft. thick. A dry situation and sloping surface are essential with this plan, and a small ditch should surround the heap, to carry rapidly away any water that may come from melted ice or other sources. (_Gard. Jl._)

(6) The following is an economical method of making small ice-houses indoors:--Dig a hole in a cool cellar, and make it of a size corresponding to the quantity of ice to be kept. At the bottom of this hole dig another of smaller diameter, the edge of which goes down with a gentle slope. This kind of small pit, the depth of which should be greater in proportion as the soil is less absorbent, must be filled with pebbles and sand. The whole circumference of the large hole is to be fitted up with planks, kept up along the sides with hoops, to prevent the earth from falling in. Then the bottom and all the circumference of this sort of reservoir must be lined with rye straw, placed upright with the ear downwards, and kept up along the planks by a sufficient number of wooden hoops. The ice is to be heaped up in this ice-house, which must be covered over with a great quantity of hay and packing cloth, on which should be placed a wooden cover and some light straw. (_Les Mondes._)

(_b_) _Storing Foods without change._--This embraces the keeping of fruits, roots, eggs, &c.

To have a fruit room in a garden does not always argue that the fruit stored in it will be well preserved. Such a store-house is of the first importance; but, unless care is observed, and some special attention given to the different kinds of fruit it may contain, much loss is likely to be the consequence. As to the structure itself, it is sufficient to say here that it should be perfectly dry, and so constructed as to maintain an equable temperature at all times. An ice house, if dry, makes a good fruit room--without the ice, of course--for a fruit room, once the fruit is placed in it, does not require much ventilation, unless it can be given without altering the temperature. Heats and cools, alternately producing condensation and evaporation, soon produce decay and rottenness, and should be guarded against as much as possible; the fruit should always feel dry to the touch. Possibly, the very best position that an apple or pear, for example, could be placed in, to preserve it, would be to suspend it by the footstalk in the air, and free from contact with any other object. Onions done up in strings in the old-fashioned way invariably keep much better than those laid on shelves or on a floor, and it is the same with fruit. Fruit rooms which are above ground should be double-walled, and ceiled; but when sunk or partially sunk in the ground this is not so important, if damp is otherwise excluded. Hardy fruits and grapes are often kept long and well in a fruit room that is more like a cellar (only dry) than anything else.

The shelves and tables for holding the fruit should be sparred, and before the fruit is stored they should be covered with a layer of clean wheat straw, but so thinly that one can see through between the spars of the shelves, which will allow a free circulation of air amongst the fruit. When the room is empty during the summer-time, it should be thoroughly ventilated, washed and dried, and made sweet and clean, and, when the fruit is stored, shut up and kept in darkness.

A writer in the _Field_ expresses himself thus:--The easiest and best method of keeping fruit, and one practised for years, is simply to take ordinary wine cases, halves and quarters, as different sizes are handy, line the bottoms well with short sweet hay, and take them on a hand-barrow to the orchard. There the fruit should be laid carefully in them, taken at once to the fruit room, and placed on close-bottomed shelves. Under such circumstances it will keep until April, and even until June in sand. The greatest care is used in the picking and handling of the fruit. It may be thought that, when in single layers, fruit is more easily examined, and decaying fruit cleared away; but from many years’ experience in storing fruit in barrels and boxes, only a small quantity is lost by decay or wilting. Nor is such vigilance required in the way of periodical gleanings as some would believe. The very act of searching for such is inimical to the good keeping of the rest, as we cannot see the side farthest from us; consequently the fruits have to be handled, and the oftener this is done the sooner will the bloom--the best safeguard to keeping--get rubbed off. In boxes this is avoided. Simply commence using from the top, and go on until the bottom is reached; and not only does the fruit come out clear and clean-skinned, but as sound and firm as when put away. (J. K.)

Apples and Pears.--(_a_) When the fruit room cannot hold all the crop, it should only be used for the best sample, which should be gathered without bruising, and spread out on the shelves in a single layer, and barely touching each other. In plentiful seasons the different varieties are often piled up in hillocks, on the shelves and floors, to the destruction of large quantities of the fruit; for it is not possible to keep fruit long in that condition, and it soon becomes rotten and useless. In most establishments the wants of the kitchen and dessert can be judged very nearly; and such being the case, it is far better to dispose of the fruit which cannot be used at home, and keep and care for a supply of the better dessert and kitchen fruit only. In many establishments it is the custom, in plentiful seasons, to store all the crop in a house that was never intended to accommodate it, and throughout the autumn and winter preservation consists principally in picking out the rotten fruit periodically, and wheeling it to the pigsty or the rubbish heap. It would be better to have given it away for nothing at the beginning. Such waste is simply disgraceful; but it is what happens in many large private gardens. Apples and pears soon decay and rot if they are carelessly stored, but it is surprising how long even the so-called worst-keeping varieties can be preserved with a little care. Apples of the Codling and Lord Suffield class, and pears like the Jargonelle and Hessel, or “hogel,” as it is called in the north, are not supposed to keep many days; but they will keep nevertheless for a considerable time if they are not piled up in heaps like potatoes. Codling apples, indeed, will keep till they become insipid and flavourless without showing signs of decay. In some cases it is necessary to keep the fruit in store till it can be disposed of advantageously; and when that is so, and it cannot be accommodated in the fruit room proper, it should be stored in a dry loft or shed, and covered over with dry straw to protect from the vicissitudes of the weather. Common fruit laid up in heaps in this way soon ripens and turns yellow, but does not keep.

(_b_) Where there is no room for storing apples in the usual way, they may be treated as follows: All the later keeping sorts, after being picked and laid out thinly in a room, may be stored in a pit, the same as potatoes. Mark out the pit 3 ft. wide and 9 in. in depth; put a layer of clean straw in the bottom. Commence at one end with the latest keeping sorts, and make them into a ridge about 2 ft. high in the centre; put a layer of straw between the sorts to keep them from getting mixed; then take the next sort, and so continue with the latest until the whole is finished. A covering of dry turves or straw must then be put over the whole, and this must be covered with soil, the same as is generally done with potato pits. Blenheims keep in this way in very fine condition till the middle of January, and later keeping sorts according to their times of ripening. When pitting the fruit, great care must be taken to pick out all that are bruised or damaged. Faults of this kind will be readily seen after 9-12 days from the time when the fruits are gathered. Bruised apples soon rot, and cause others to do the same; but, if carefully stored, scarcely one will be found decayed when taken from the pits, if taken out about the time they are generally ripe. (W. C.)

Artichokes.--Boil as many artichokes as you intend to keep, only just enough to be able to pull off all the leaves and choke: lay the bottoms on a tin plate, and put them in the oven. When thoroughly dry, and quite hard, put them in a paper bag, and hang them in a dry place. Before using they must be soaked in warm water for 3-4 hours, changing the water very often. Let the last water be boiling hot, the bottoms will then be very tender, and eat as well as fresh ones.

Asparagus.--Boil fresh-gathered, well-scraped asparagus for 5 minutes in salted water. Strain off the water, dip them in cold water and drain on a cloth; put them in tins with the points all one way. Have an ironmonger ready to solder on the lids immediately; when the solder is cold put the tins in a cauldron of water and boil for 1½ hour. Keep them with the points of the asparagus upwards. It is better to mark the top of the tin to prevent their being reversed.

Cherries.--These can only be successfully preserved on the tree, and then only when the trees are grown against walls or as espaliers. On standards it is almost impossible to keep them from the birds, except by much trouble and expense. Early cherries can be preserved a month or more after they are ripe by covering the trees with mats, and keeping them quite dark. The trees do not suffer so much by this practice as one would imagine, although the leaves fall off prematurely, owing no doubt to the wood being pretty well matured before the fruit is ripe; but it is not advisable to cover the same trees every year in succession. Morello cherries of course keep best when grown on a north wall, and it is hardly necessary to mat them; but they must be netted to keep off vermin.

Currants.--Take when ripe, separate from the stem, put in glass jars, set them in a kettle of cold water, then put them over the fire, and boil 15-20 minutes; cork tight, and set away where the frost will not get to them.

Eggs.--(_a_) Most of the recipes given for preserving eggs direct that the egg should be coated with something to stop up the pores. Many seem equally efficacious if the covering is complete, with one exception--fat, which becomes rancid, and imparts its own flavour through the pores of the shell. Gum, the white of an egg, collodion, or gelatine have all been used with success, but paraffin wax has often failed. Anything that the eggs are packed in gives its own flavour to their contents; therefore bran, chaff, and straw are to be avoided as being likely to become musty. It is far better to set the eggs on end, the larger ends upwards, in a wire or wooden rack, and to allow free passage of air between. The eggs need not then be turned, for the yolks are tethered to each end by a membranous cord, and if they settle, it is always to one side, which would here be impossible, nor to either extremity. One writer has used and approved the following method: To 1 teaspoonful salicylic acid add about 1 pint boiling water. Let it cool, dip the eggs in one by one, dry them, and store them on racks in an airy cupboard. Again some people dip each egg into boiling water, and so make an impervious lining of its own white; but this requires more care to prevent cracking, and does not preserve the eggs for so long a time as the recipes given above. Eggs are also packed in boxes in lime, and turned frequently. The advantage of this plan is the small space that a number of eggs occupy; its great disadvantage is that the lime acts upon the shell and thins it down to exceeding brittleness. Much better is it to make a tub of lime water, by pouring cold water over ordinary unslaked lime, and when it has settled and is clear, pour off the water into a deep vessel. Put the eggs in this and cover it over. The air is here effectually kept away from the eggs, and the difficulty of wire racks is avoided. For cooking purposes lime packing is all that can be desired, though for the breakfast table some much prefer the salicylic acid. Whatever plan is chosen the eggs should be put by at once, not after they are a week or two old.

(_b_) When you collect your eggs in a morning, sort them into sizes, and put 10-12 into a net; have ready a large saucepan of water at the full boil. Take the net with the eggs and hold it in exactly 2 seconds; this kills the germ of the egg and closes the pores of the shell. It is necessary, as the eggs always differ much in size, to take one of each size, immerse them separately, and time them exactly, as the white must on no account be in the least degree set. When they are finished, pack all away in tin boxes until required for use.

(_c_) Get a brick of salt, pound it fine and dry it, then place the eggs freshly gathered, and not cracked, with the pointed ends downwards in the salt, and pack them firmly in a box or jar; then keep them in a dry place. Most of them will be quite fit for the table when kept not more than 3 months; after that they still poach well, and are good for culinary purposes. The same salt used for several years is better than new. One great convenience of this plan is that on opening a box, or 4 lb. biscuit tin containing about 60, you are not compelled to use them all quickly, for each egg is isolated in salt and remains fresh till wanted. The weight of testimony on all sides is much in favour of salt over all other plans.

(_d_) To 1 gal. water put 1 lb. quicklime; pour the water, when boiling, on the lime, and let it stand till the next day. Procure a large brown earthenware pan, well glazed inside, and large enough to hold about 100 eggs; put them in carefully, that they do not get in the least cracked, pour in the lime water, cover over the vessel with a slate, and put it in the cellar, but do not let it touch the floor. A little salt in the lime keeps the water from freezing. Eggs thus treated will keep good for many months.

Figs.--These should not be gathered from the tree until they are ripe and tender in the skin, after which they will keep in the fruit room for a few days without growing mouldy, but no longer; on ice, however, they will keep for 2-3 weeks.

Filberts.--Get some stone jars, such as are used for pickles, about 2 ft. in height and 1 ft. in diameter; fill them with filberts, and then cork them down very tightly with a bung. Bury them about 1 ft. in the earth, or place them in a damp wine-cellar.

French Beans.--(_a_) Cut the beans up as usual, boil for 10 minutes in water without salt, put into a colander. Fill tins with them almost to the top, leaving only a little room for enough boiling water to cover them; then solder the tins down, after which boil them for an hour; take the tins out, and keep them in a dry place.

(_b_) Gather the beans when young, and in dry weather. Have ready a brown earthenware pan or crock holding about ½ basket, and when the beans have been gathered string and cut them as if for immediate use; cover the bottom of the crock well with salt--the coarse kind used for pickling pork--add a layer of French beans, well cover them with salt, then add layers of beans and of salt alternately until the crock is full; tie it down with thick brown paper, keep it in a cool cellar where it is not too dry, and by Christmas the beans will be ready for use. It is not necessary to have sufficient beans at one time to fill the crock, provided care is taken to cover the last layer with plenty of salt. To prepare them for use during the winter, take out of the crock as many as are wanted for immediate use, put them in a pan, and pour enough hot (but not boiling) water over them to cover them (the salt will then fall to the bottom), lift out the beans, and put them into fresh hot water 3 or 4 times, allowing them to remain in each water ¾-1 hour, then boil them in the ordinary way. A pinch of soda carbonate in the water they are boiled in gives them the bright green colour they have when fresh gathered. Towards the end of the winter they require ¼-½ hour’s extra boiling, as the salt is apt to make them hard. Keep the crock tied down between the times of using the beans. By attention to these rules they will remain good till the following May or June.

Gooseberries and Currants.--Bushes of both these in the open quarter may be matted up when the fruit is ripe, and it will keep, under ordinarily favourable conditions, till November; but by far the best plan is to grow the trees against a north wall, where they may be kept till late in the season with little trouble.

Grapes.--(_a_) Many people are deterred from adopting the very useful plan of keeping late grapes in bottles of water, from the idea that some elaborately fitted up or air-tight compartment is necessary; but this is by no means the case, as, with a little contrivance, a good grape room may be extemporised in any compartment enclosed with 4 brick walls. The principal point is to get a steady temperature, that would not be liable to sudden fluctuations: and for this reason a room with a northern aspect is desirable, or, what is better still, an apartment that does not communicate directly with the outside air. The advantage of having the grapes thus securely bottled, when severe frosts and sunshine render it impossible to maintain the houses in which they were grown at anything like an equable temperature after the beginning of the year, can only be fully realised by those who have had to keep them on the vines until late in spring, besides the benefit which the vines derive by being released of their crop and pruned, cleaned, &c., at the most favourable period.

(_b_) Cut them with about 6 in. of wood below the bunch, and 2 in. or 3 in. of wood above. Place the bunches in bottles filled with water and a bit of charcoal in each. The grapes must hang quite free, without touching the bottles. A slip of wood placed between the stalk and the bottle ensures this. Grapes keep in this way for many months. They must be stored in a dry place.

Green Peas.--(_a_) The Russian method is to shell the peas, put them into a saucepan of boiling water, let them remain but a short time, and put them to drain in a colander; when thoroughly drained, spread them out on a cloth on the kitchen table to dry; next put them in the oven (which must be cool) in flat tin dishes just for a few minutes to harden; keep them in paper bags hung up in the kitchen or other warm, dry place. When wanted for use, soak in soft water 1 hour, then place them in a saucepan of cold water with a small piece of butter, and boil them until they are fit to serve.

(_b_) The peas must be quite fully grown, but not old. They must be gathered on a fine day and be perfectly dry. After shelling, put them into wide-mouthed bottles. These, too, must be quite dry; any dampness would cause the peas to turn mouldy. When in the bottles, shake them a little to make them lie as close as possible, cork the bottles, and tie moistened bladder tightly over them to exclude the air. Set the bottles side by side in a large fish-kettle, with hay at the bottom and round the sides, as well as around each bottle. Pour in cold water up to the necks of the bottles, put the pan on the fire, and after the water boils let it continue boiling for 2 hours; then take the pan off, and leave the bottles standing in it until the water is perfectly cold. When cold, take them out, wipe them dry, apply melted rosin over the tops, and put them away to keep in a cool, dry place.

Honey.--Honey, if required to be kept in the comb, should be left undisturbed in the supers, and cut out as required; that which is sealed over will keep a long time without alteration. One very good way of preserving honey, when it is white comb and perfectly free from bee-bread, as that of all good bee-keepers should be, is to melt the whole by placing it in an earthen vessel, and standing it in a saucepan of boiling water. When the wax has melted and risen to the top, tie the jar down tightly with bladders, and the whole will keep, if undisturbed, for many months without alteration or loss of flavour.

Lemons.--(_a_) Wrap each in common tissue paper, and lay them out on a shelf so that they do not touch each other. The shelf should be in a dry, dark cupboard, free from draughts. (_b_) Lemons will keep good for months by simply putting them in a jug of butter-milk, changing the butter-milk about every 3 weeks. When the lemons are required for use, they should be well dried with a cloth. (_c_) They will keep some time in a jar with fresh dry earth mould covering each separately. (_d_) Put them in a basin of water, which latter should be changed twice or thrice weekly, taking care not to bruise the lemons.

Lemon Juice.--To preserve this, squeeze a number of fine lemons, taking care that they are all quite fresh. Strain the juice through muslin, and pour it into bottles with just enough of the best olive oil to cover the surface. Cork well, and keep in a dry place. Or it may be done with sugar, allowing ½ lb. powdered sugar to ½ pint lemon juice. They must be stirred together with a silver spoon until the sugar is quite dissolved. Pour it into small bottles, corking them well, and tying bladder tightly over the corks.

Melons.--Some varieties of the melon keep much better than others, and are all the more valuable on that account. It is a pity that raisers of new varieties do not give a little more attention to this point. By selecting from those kinds which are coconut-shaped and firm of rind, particularly at the end, we should no doubt have melons of excellent keeping qualities, as well as of good flavour. As it is, at present none of the recent new sorts is superior to, if as good, as those which were cultivated 20-30 years ago. All the varieties should be cut when just ripe, and kept in a cool, dry room.

(_b_) _Eingemacht melonen_, the German way of preparing which is the following: Remove the outer part and the seeds of the melon; cut it into convenient pieces, and lay it for 24 hours in some good white wine vinegar, with a few pieces of cinnamon and of ginger, and the thin rind of 1 or 2 lemons. Then make a sweet syrup with lump sugar and some of the vinegar; boil and skim it, and when cold lay the pieces of melon in it; after 2 days take them out, boil up the syrup, and replace them in it when it is cold. Repeat this operation once more, taking care to boil down the liquor to a very thick syrup; then put by the preserve in jars in the usual way. (The G. C.)

(_c_) Put them in a strong brine of salt and water in a wide-mouthed jar; cover them with cabbage leaves, cap the jar with paper, and set it in the chimney corner till the leaves become yellowish, when the melons must be put in fresh salt and water with fresh cabbage leaves, covered close, and put on a very slow fire to warm gently but not to boil; then take them out, clean the pan, and put them in fresh cold water to stand 2 days, changing the water thrice daily (to take the saltness off); prick them with a fork, and cut all the large ones into convenient pieces, removing all the seeds; lay them in more cold water, while you make a syrup thus: boil 1 lb. loaf sugar in 1 full gill water, taking off the scum, and add afterwards 1 oz. bruised brown ginger to each lb., and the very thin rind of a lemon. When the syrup is thick, set it by till cold; then put in the pieces of fruit. Take the fruit out again, and boil up the syrup 3 times a week for 3 weeks, and never put the fruit in again till cold. At the end of 3 weeks tie papers over the jars, and put them by. (C. E.)

Mushrooms.--(_a_) Pick and cut off the stalks, wipe them clean, from the large ones remove the brown part, peel off the skin, and lay them on paper in a cool oven. When dry put them into paper bags, and keep them in a dry place. When required for use, simmer them in gravy, and they will swell to their original size.

(_b_) Allow to each qt. of mushrooms 3 oz. butter, pepper and salt to taste, and the juice of 1 lemon. Peel the mushrooms, and put them into cold water, with a little lemon juice; take them out and dry them very carefully in a cloth. Put the butter into a stewpan capable of holding the mushrooms. When melted, add the mushrooms, lemon juice, pepper, and salt. Let them remain over a slow fire until their liquor is boiled away, and they have become quite dry. Be careful not to allow them to stick to the bottom of the pan. When done, put them into pots, and pour over the top clarified butter. If required for immediate use, they will keep good a few days without being covered over. To re-warm them, put the mushrooms into a stewpan, strain the butter from them, and they will be ready for use.

Peaches and Nectarines.--These, like the plums, vary in their keeping qualities; and certainly to be a good keeper is not the least merit a peach or nectarine can possess, for, owing to the crop frequently coming in suddenly during a spell of warm weather, the gardener is forced to gather large quantities of fruit, and keep it the best way he can. Every one does not possess an ice-house, otherwise most varieties keep on for ice 4-6 weeks; but they must be used as soon as taken out, and almost before they have cooled. In the fruit room, placed on a cool airy shelf, the Royal George peach, Belle-garde, Grosse Mignonne, Borrington, and Late Admiral will keep a fortnight or longer, according to the weather; and the Malta is said to keep even longer. But much depends, of course, how the fruit is gathered. Nectarines are better keepers than peaches, and the Victoria is one of the best. Most of the kinds will keep a fortnight at least without deteriorating in flavour if they are pulled at the right time, which is just before they are quite ripe to the base.

Pineapples.--By far the best keepers of these are the smooth Cayenne, Charlotte Rothschild, and Queen. The first two will keep 6 weeks after they are ripe if the plants are moved into a cool structure and kept dry at the root, but if they are cut off the plant they do not keep so long. Queens keep 4-5 weeks on the plants under the same conditions. Some recommend the fruit, whether cut or on the plants, to be removed before it gets quite ripe; but when good flavour is an object this practice is not advisable, as the fruit will keep nearly as well if it is allowed to get quite ripe before taking it out of the pinery.

Plums and Apricots.--Both plums and apricots are difficult to keep long, though some varieties keep much better than others, particularly of plums. Apricots perish on the tree if they are not gathered in time, generally rotting on the ripe side, particularly if the weather be wet, or if the fruit has been injured by wasps or other vermin. The only plan is to gather the fruit before it is quite ripe on the shady side, and lay it on a sieve in the fruit room, or in a cool cellar. In this way it will keep for a week perfectly perhaps, but scarcely longer.

Plums keep tolerably well, and some sorts, like that excellent variety, Coe’s Golden Drop, keep an astonishingly long period under certain favourable conditions. The best-preserved samples we ever saw of this variety were suspended to footstalks on lines stretched across a dry room; and if we remember rightly, they have been kept in that condition for 2 months. Some wrap the fruit in dry paper, and, if we are not mistaken, Reeves has somewhere stated that he has eaten them in good condition 12 months after they were gathered when preserved in that way. Considering what an excellent dessert variety Coe’s Golden Drop is, it is a wonder it has not long ago became the subject of special culture, under glass if necessary, just like the peach and nectarine--it is well worth a house to itself. Another excellent keeping plum of the same breed as Coe’s Golden Drop is the Ickworth Impératrice, which hangs on the tree till it shrivels, and keeps for a long while in the fruit room. Knight, who raised it, states in the Transactions of the Horticultural Society that he has kept fruit of it, wrapped in blotting-paper and kept in a dry room, till the end of March. Blue Impératrice is also said to be a good keeper; and the old damson, so useful for tarts and preserving, is not one of the worst, as it will keep for several weeks if the fruit is spread out thinly on the shelves as soon as gathered. None of the plums keep well after they have been basketed and stored, even for a short time. They get bruised, and, no matter how carefully they are kept afterwards, they soon rot. Everything depends on gathering them before they get dead ripe, and storing properly at once.

Roots.--The action of frost is not thoroughly understood by farmers generally. This is shown by the way clamps are covered with manure on the top and half-way down the sides. The singular fact, however, is, that the top of a clamp is never injured--that is, unless the frost is so severe and prolonged that the whole mass is frozen--if the clamp be fairly covered with straw and earth at starting. The severity of an attack of frost begins and continues from the outer soil at the base of a clamp or brick store, as a barn or other building. Whether this is because a gentle fermentation of the roots or potatoes goes on, the warmth thus caused rising to the top, or whether it is because the lowest temperature is nearest the immediate surface of the earth, has not been decided; but the result invariably is that, if a body of roots or potatoes be partly injured, the rotten ones will be found at the bottom. If the clamp be broadside to the north or east wind, the rotten ones will be found in the form of a triangle on the side where the wind has blown, the base of the triangle being at the bottom; if, however, the clamp had been situated with the end to the wind, the rotten roots will be found at that end in the form of an inverted M, that is, there will be a decayed triangle on each side. The length and depth to which this decay would extend along the clamp would of course depend on the severity and length of the frost.

The required precaution is therefore shown. In the case of clamps after several days of severe frost, with a prospect of its continuing, long manure, straw, hedge-trimming, or whatever may be at hand, should be packed 1 ft. or more thick, and 1 yd. or so wide on the surface soil at the base of the clamp, at the side on which the blast is impinging. It is the same with a brick building. If a bed or heap of potatoes or mangold be stored in a barn, either all over a bay or in one or more corners, and the same be well covered with straw, there will be no fear of the top or outer side of the heap being frozen. But the part of the heaps which are near to the wall will be found to have been frozen in the form of a triangle, as mentioned. The fact is the frost rises, so to express it, from the foundation of the brickwork being communicated with from the surface soil outside. This shows the importance of packing a body of long manure or a quantity of straw on the surface soil outside the brickwork.

Rowan Berries.--(_a_) Fill a large earthenware jar with strong salt and water. Put in the berries; tie it down. They will keep in this way till Christmas, (_b_) Gum them well all over so as to make them adhere to their stalks, and sealing-wax the ends where cut from the tree, and keep them in a tin box till required for use.

Tomatoes.--(_a_) Cut up a number of tomatoes, and let them simmer gently in a stewpan over a slow fire until reduced to a pulp. From this squeeze all the juice by pressing it through a fine hair sieve; boil it until it thickens, and then pour it into small bottles. Stand these in a large fish-kettle or boiler, filling it with cold water, and putting some hay between the bottles and against the sides of the boiler, to prevent them from touching it or each other. Set the boiler on the fire, and let all boil for ¼ hour after the water comes to the boil. Let the bottles get cold in the water after taking the boiler off the fire. Then cork and seal them, and keep them in a dry place. Take care that none of the water gets into the bottles while boiling.

(_b_) If these are not to be packed for travelling, stone jars are better for their preservation than tins. Gather the tomatoes when perfectly ripe, and discard all that have blemishes. Pack them lightly till the jar is full, then entirely cover with strong vinegar and water in equal parts; add a few whole cloves and a sprinkling of sugar. Cover with a piece of flannel, letting it sink into the vinegar, then tie over with thick paper or bladder.

Truffles.--To keep truffles till required for use choose the blackest, let them be fresh gathered; when thoroughly washed and brushed, peel them carefully with a sharp knife, and reject all that are not perfectly sound; put them into bottles as close as they will lie, cork them tightly, and boil them for an hour in the bain-marie.

Vegetable Marrows.--(_a_) To preserve these for winter use, choose such as are fully ripe--turned yellow. When cut, arrange them in a dry place, resting on the flower end, with the stalk end upwards. They will then keep good the whole winter. (_b_) Cut them when fully grown, lay them on the pantry floor, and turn them twice a week, or put 2 pieces of tape or listing round them, and suspend them from a ceiling. The marrow improves in flavour, becoming quite nutty; they will keep in this way far into spring.

Walnuts.--(_a_) Walnuts intended for keeping should be suffered to fall of themselves from the trees, and be afterwards laid in a dry, open, and airy place, till they become thoroughly dried. Then pack them in jars, boxes, or casks, in alternate layers with fine clear sand, which has previously been well dried in the sun, in an oven, or before the fire; set them in a dry place, but not where it is too hot, and they will keep good till the latter end of April. Before they are sent to table wipe the sand off, and if they have become shrivelled steep them in milk and water for 6-8 hours; this will make them plump and fine, as well as cause them to peel easily. (_b_) Place them, fresh gathered and unwashed, in earthen jars, tied down with stiff glazed brown paper, and keep them on the floor of the wine-cellar. They are perfectly good until the new ones come in again, (_c_) Put the new walnuts in earthen jars with salt; cover them close, and leave them in a damp cellar. When you want to use them, wash them in cold water. At Christmas they will peel and eat like fresh fruit.

(_c_) _Curing foods for lengthened preservation._

This branch of the subject may be conveniently divided into several sections, according to the means employed for rendering the foods less susceptible to change under the influence of the air. The most important agents are smoke and salt in the case of flesh, sugar for fruits, and vinegar for vegetables.