440 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Sept. 



LADIES' DEPARTMENT. 



DOMESTIC RECEIPTS. 



Blackberry Wine. — To three quarts of black- 

 berry juice, add one quart of water and three and 

 a half pounds of sugar, white or brown. Put it 

 in an open jar, and let it stand two or three days 

 to work ; then bottle, and set away in a cool 

 place for a year before using. 



Blackberry Cordial. — Take any convenient 

 quantity of blackberries, and stew in a preserv- 

 ing kettle for half an hour ; then strain, and boil 

 again for half an hour, adding one pound of su- 

 gar to each quart of juice, using spices to the 

 taste. When cool, add one gill or more of genu- 

 ine Cognac brandy to each quart of juice. Then 

 bottle and cork tight. 



A Cheap Beer. — A very good, palatable and 

 wholesome beer may be obtained from acorns 

 and hops. It is slightly sparkling, eminently 

 tonic, and a febrifuge. The acorns are steeped 

 in water for fifteen or twenty days, the water be- 

 ing renewed four or five times ; they are then 

 transferred to a cask, hops are added, the cask 

 filled up with water, and the bunghole lightly 

 covered, but not stopped, as there is an escape of 

 gas. In fifteen or twenty days the beer is fit to 

 drink, and as fast as it is drawn off fresh water 

 may be poured on. The cost is less than three 

 pence per gallon. It would supply four or five 

 persons, for eight months, with a very excellent 

 beverage. 



New Way of Boiling Fish. — The addition 

 of a few herbs and vegetables in the water gives 

 a very nice flavor to the fish. Add, according to 

 taste, a little sliced onion, thyme, bayleaf, winter 

 savory, carrots, celery, cloves, mace, using which- 

 ever of these ingredients you can procure; it 

 greatly improves skate, fresh haddock, gurnet, 

 &c. Fresh water fish, which have no particular 

 flavor, are preferable done thus, with the addition 

 of a little vinegar. Choose whatever sauces you 

 please for any of the above fish. 



Green Corn Pudding. — This is one of the 

 numerous luxuries which the farmer can enjoy 

 with but little expense or trouble. For making 

 it, take twelve ears of green corn, full in the 

 milk and grate it. To this add one quart of sweet 

 milk, one-fourth of a pound of fresh butter, four 

 eggs well beaten, pepper and salt as much as 

 may be deemed necessary. Stir the ingredients 

 well together, and bake in a buttered dish. Some 

 add a quarter-pound of fine sugar, and eat with 

 sauce. This is a fine-flavored and excellent dish, 

 cold or warm, with meat or sauce. 



Fried Egg Plant. — Cut the plant in thin 

 slices, sprinkle with salt, and let them stand half 

 an hour, pour off" the water that the salt extracts, 

 and dry the plant with a towel ; beat an egg, dip 

 the plant in it, then roll in cracker, and fry brown 

 in butter. Some prefer simply dipping them in 

 the egg without the cracker, or rolling them in 

 the flour without the egg. Season highly and 

 cook slowly. 



Baked Egg Plant. — Parboil it until it is soft 

 enough to stick into the meat ; then cut it Justin 



half; scoop out the inside, leaving the hull ; chop 

 it very fine, and season very highly with pepper 

 and salt, a good deal of butter, and a very 

 little onion, and add crumbs of bread. Mix all 

 well together, and return it into the hull ; then 

 strew crumbs of bread on the top, and bake it 

 about an hour. If carefully cooked this is the 

 best way to eat egg plant at dinner. 



Pickling Cucumbers.— As a general thing, 

 sufficient care is not taken in pickling cucumbers, 

 and large numbers of them "spoil" in less than 

 three months' time. The following method we 

 think the best : Select a sufficient quantity of the 

 size you prefer, which probably cannot be done at 

 one time. Put them in a stone pot, and pour 

 over them a strong brine ; to this add a small bit 

 of alum to secure the color. Let them stand a 

 week ; then exchange the brine for clear water, 

 in which they must remain two or three days. 

 Boil the best cider vinegar, and when nearly 

 cool, pour it over the cucumbers, having pre- 

 viously turned off the water. Prepared in this 

 manner with the addition of cloves, allspice, mus- 

 tard and cinnamon, boiled in the vinegar, pick- 

 les of every kind will keep for a year. In pick- 

 ling cauliflower, tomatoes and other vegetables, 

 which easily absorb the vinegar, the spiced vine- 

 gar should be added when cold. 



IN LOVE WITH CALICO. 



As the "last best gift" are discussing the dress 

 question in the Eural, we think the remarks of 

 one of the "sterner sex," — a young man in Os- 

 wego county, who has been inspired by calico, — 

 are worthy of more than a passing notice. Read 

 them and ponder : 



Calico dresses are a grand institution. De- 

 laines, silks, and even satins, are good enough 

 in their place — in the parlor or band-box, and all 

 such ; but after all the old "stand by," the sub- 

 stantial, is the shilling calico. Care must be tak- 

 en not to soil the silk ; nothing must come in 

 contact with the nice dress that will rumple and 

 stain it ; but the calico, that's made for work, 

 and, as the "highfalutins" say, "nobly does it ful- 

 fil its mission." Silk rarely finds its way into 

 the realities of life ; that is, into the kitchen at 

 home, or into the hut of the suffering abroad. 

 But calico. O, what rich meals we get by it ; 

 how it cheers the suffering as with its bright col- 

 ors and cheerful presence it stands with soft hand 

 ministering to our distresses. 



Calico seems to be always more willing and 

 ready to give to want than silk. It is a curious 

 fact of our nature, that the nicer our dress the 

 harder our heart is, as if when dressed in silk we 

 changed our natures, and rose above base, world- 

 ly things. What ! our silk dress be seen near 

 enough to that poor woman to give her assist- 

 ance, or drabbling into a dirtv hut ? No, never ! 

 Calico might do it ; silk, it's just impossible. 



But when in addition to all, Calico comes in, 

 rosy with the exercise of kitchen duties which it 

 knows how to do so well, and loves to do so dear- 

 ly, and sits down to the piano or melodeon, and 

 makes the liquid melody flow sweetly forth ; aye, 

 even blending its own sweet voice with the music 

 of the instrument, then we appreciate Calico." — 

 Rural New-Yorker. 



