220 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Sweet pickles I prefer to secure air tight. Make a syrup of good 

 cider vinegar and sugar, using spices to suit the taste ; if a dark color 

 is desirable, use ground spices; if light, put spices in a little bag and 

 boil with the syrup or put them in syrup whole. Steam apples and 

 crab-apples until tender, put them in jars, pour hot syrup over, and 

 seal air tight. 



Cook pears in prepared syrup until tender, take out, place in bottles, 

 boil down the syrup a little, pour over fruit and seal. Peaches will 

 be cooked sufficiently by pouring hot syrup over them for three or 

 four successive mornings. 



There are so many recipes in the cook books and, papers, good 

 ones too, if one would adhere strictly to directions, using the best of 

 vinegar, keeping air tight or secure from flies or insects, there need be 

 no cause for failure. « 



MY FLORAL TREASURES. 



BY MRS. G. J. CARPENTER. 



My experience is so limited compared to the love I have for flowers 

 that I feel almost unequal to doing the subject justice, for of all the 

 most beautiful of God's works, who does not love themi? 



We place them upon the altars of our churches at Christmas and 

 Easter as fitting emblems of the birth and resurrection of the Savior. 

 We gather them to deck the bride, and with what fond and caressing ten- 

 derness we place them beside our dead. A home without flowers must 

 be a barren home indeed ; and if by any possibility there exists a sin- 

 gle person who does not treasure somewhere in his heart the memory 

 of a childhood's home around which grew flowers, however humble, 

 that person may truly be said never to have had any childhood. 

 How our mind reverts to the dear old home of long ago. It may 

 have been devoid of grace and beauty, only a humble farm house 

 among the hills, but it had rose bushes under the window and morn- 

 ing glories beside the door, and the dear old garden, with its poppies 

 and marigolds and hollyhocks, was magnificient to our childish mind 

 beyond comparison. 



But a great improvement has been made in the cultivation of flow- 



