186 transactions of the american institute. 



Making Apple Butter. 



A correspondent thinks that if farmers desire to prepare fruit for soldiers, 

 there is nothing easier or better than apple butter — far better than dried 

 apples for those who have no good conveniences for cooking them. To 

 make good apple butter, take sweet cider fresh from the press, and boil 

 two gallons into one; pare, core and cut into quarters sweet apples free 

 from blemish. It will improve the flavor to add a few pears or quinces, if 

 convenient. The cider syrup being skimmed and boilng hot, the fruit is 

 added gradually, and must be stirred constantly until sufficiently cooked, 

 when the whole will be homogeneous, and of a fine chocolate color. Con- 

 stant attention is required to prevent burning. When well made it is 

 entirely free from lumps, and about as thick as good mush. It may be 

 kept in jars and kegs, in a cool, dry room for a long time, and is not injured 

 by freezing. It is very common, indeed almost universal, among Pennsyl- 

 vania farmers, and is considered a good substitute for butter, palatable and 

 wholesome. For transportation, particularly to send to the army, it should 

 be put up in soldered tin cans, or in wooden kegs like those that contain 

 twenty-five pounds of white lead. 



Putting up Fruit in Cans. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter. — It may not be generally -known that with all our 

 abundance of fruit, so cheaply grown in this country, we import large 

 quantities of canned fruit from France. It is put up so perfectly that it 

 will keep for years. They use very little sugar; and fruit thus prepared 

 is doubtless far more healthful than that preserved wholly with sugar. 

 As a general rule, in canning fruit in this country, sugar is so largely used 

 that the natural flavor of the fruit is destroyed. 



Prof. Mapes. — There are a few general rules upon the subject of canning 

 fruit which need to be better understood. One is, that any fruit that does 

 not naturally generate gas largely will keep with very little preparation. 

 This is the case with tomatoes. They will keep with but very little cook- 

 ing, and without the addition of any other substance, and with less care 

 in preparation than almost any other fruit that is preserved in sealed cans. 

 If tomatoes are slightly scalded and skinned, and put into bottles, and 

 these set into boiling water for a few minutes, and corked and sealed, the 

 fruit will keep as long as desired, and if eaten when first opened will have 

 the same taste as when just picked from the vines. On the contrary, no 

 preparation which j'ou can give plums will keep them perfectly. Peas are 

 of the same character; they cannot be kept fresh, however tightly they 

 may be sealed, on account of the fixed air which they contain. Pears arc 

 very easily kept. I have Bartlett pears now in the house, of excellent 

 qualit}^, which were pared, quartered and cored, placed in bottles without 

 anything added, and then placed in a water bath and heated nearly, but 

 not quite, to the boiling point, and then corked and sealed. All that is 

 needed in fruit easily preserved is to expel the air, to make nearly a per- 

 fect vacuum, wliich may be done by the air pump or by heat. It is not 

 necessary to cook tlie fruit, nor is it ever as good when the heat is raised 

 too high. Indeed, no kind of fruit should ever be cooked in sugar. In 



