Directions for making of Si/rups^ Sfc. 359 



8. You may know when your conserves are almost spoiled by 

 this; you shall fiud a hard crust at top with little holes in it, as 

 though worms had been eating there. 



CHAP. VIII. Of Preserves. 



OF Preserves are sundy sorts, and the operations of all being 

 somewhat different, we shall handle them all apart. These are 

 preserved with sugar : 



1- Flowers. I 3. Roots. 



3. Fruits. I 4. Barks. 



1 . Flowers are very seldom preserved ; I never saw any that I 

 remember, save only cowslip flowers, and that was a great fashion 

 in Sussex when I was a boy. It is thus done : Take a flat glass, 

 we call them jat-glasses ; stiew in a laying of fine sugar, on that 

 a laying of fine flowt-re, on that another laying of sugar, on that 

 another laying of flowers, so do till your glass be full j then tie 

 it over with paper, and in a little time you shall have very excellent 

 and plea -ant conserves. 



There is another way of preserving flowers: namely, with vi- 

 negar and salt, as they pickle capers and broom buds- but as I 

 have little skill in it myself, I cannot teach you, 



2. Fruits, as quinces, and the like, are preserved two ways : 

 (1.) Boil them well in water, and then pulp ihem through a 



sieve, as we shewed vou before ; then with the like quantity of 

 sugar, boil the water thev were boiled in into a syrup, viz. a 

 pound of sugar to a pint of liquor ; to every pound of this syrup, 

 add four ounces of the pulp; then boil it with a very gentle fire 

 to their riglit consistence, which you may easily know, if you 

 drop a d;op of it upon a trencher j if it be enough, it will 

 not stick to your fingers when it is cold. 



(2.) Another way to preserve fruits is this : First, Pare ofF the 

 rind ; then cut them in halves, and take out the core ; then boil 

 them in water till they are soft ; if you know when beef is boiled 

 enough, you may easily know when they are, then bjil the wa- 

 ter with its like weight of sugar into a syrup ; put the svrup into 

 a pot, and put the boiled fruit as whole as you left it vvhen you 

 cut it into it, and let it remain till you have occasion to use it. 



3. Roots are thus preserved : First, scrape them very clean, 

 and cleanse them from the pith, if thev* have any, for some roots 

 have not, as Hringo and the like ; boil them in water till they be 

 soft, as we shewed you before in the fruits : then boil the water 

 you boiled the root in to a syrup, as we shewed you before 3 then 

 keep the root whole in the syrup till you use them. 



4. As for barks, we have but few come to our hands to be 

 done, and of those the few that I can remembtr, are oraDges, le- 

 mons, citrons, and the outer barks of wallnuts, whicli grow 

 without side th<e shell, for the shells themselves would make but 



