October, 1911 
so thickly coated with a fragrant wax 
that they are sure to attract the at- 
tention of anyone, especially if he has 
come from a place where the plants 
are not found. He will without fail 
say: ‘“What are these things? I have 
never seen berries like them.” 
Two of their interesting habits are 
that they may continue to cling to the 
branches for two or three years, and 
are in their best condition for candle- 
making in October, especially after a 
few frosts have touched them. 
On a hillside the young folk, on a 
brilliant afternoon, found a beautiful 
cluster of the bushes. ‘To gather the 
berries in the golden sunshine was the 
very poetry of berry-picking, in those 
waves of exquisite odor from the 
crushed fruit and the bruised and 
broken leaves and twigs. What bet- 
ter outdoor music could we have had 
than the tinkling of the harvest on 
the sides of our tin pails? 
At home we found that the con- 
tents of all the vessels filled two large 
ones. Water was poured on the berries and set on a 
stove to boil. As we stirred them into the hot water, 
the perfumed steam made the room fragrant, and the 
myrtle wax floated to the surface in a layer of delicate 
green. This was skimmed off, put into another pail, and 
brought to the boiling point and finally strained. A little 
ordinary tallow was added so that the candles should not 
be too hard. Ordinary candle-wicking was twisted around 
some old-fashioned candle-rods, and then the wicks were 
dipped in the pails of water, warm enough to melt the wax 
which forms a layer 
varying in thickness 
from a half inch to 
two inches. The 
water and melted 
wax must not be too 
hot. Much depends 
on this, for a tem- 
perature a little too 
high melts the wax 
from the wick as fast 
as it is added. We 
found that it was 
best to keep the heat 
as low as possible, 
and yet hold the wax 
liquid. Candles, 
whether of bayberry 
or the ordinary tal- 
low, or of any kind 
of wax, thus hand- 
made by repeated 
dippings, are known 
as “dips,” and are 
regarded as the most 
desirable form. “These don’t look like the candles we 
buy at the store,” said another girl, as she examined them 
with a critical eye. 
Then I explained that we had gone back to almost the 
primitive form of light-giving medium, or just the next step 
ahead of a wick in oil, or in melted wax or,tallow in a dish. 
It is probable that our ancestors regarded dipping as a 
marvelous step in advance of the original floating wick. 
Then what an age of progress it must have seemed when 
some one invented a mold in which to form them! What 
’ 
AMERICAN HOMES 
A set of Bayberry candle-molds and dipper 
Dipping the cotton wicks into the bayberry wax may be carried on by the family 
AND GARDENS 379 
a labor-saving invention! What a 
brilliant mind it must have been to 
think of that! 
“Can't we make molded candles ?”’ 
was the chorus, as I explained how 
the melted wax was poured into metal 
tubes. Of course we could, because 
Mr. A. E. Arnold, who has a museum 
of old-fashioned things and who 
loaned me these dipping-rods, said: 
“You will want to try the molds, too, 
I am sure.” So I brought along a 
set. Here they are. We will fasten 
the wicks at the pointed bottom of 
the tube (really the top of the can- 
dle), make it taut through the center, 
and fasten it again to rods at the top 
across the molds. Now pour in the 
hot wax and allow it to cool. When 
it is firmly hardened the candles may 
be drawn out, when you know how. 
These molds are of various sizes, 
some for making two candles, others 
for four, or eight, or a dozen, at a 
single pouring. In many an old gar- 
ret, especially in New England, will 
be found some of these discarded vessels in various sizes, 
and usually in more or less battered condition. 
The young folk found that the most difficult part of 
candle-making by pouring was to get the liquid to just the 
right temperature, to pull the candles out of the molds, and 
to wait just long enough to let the candles harden, but not 
tomgen sol hardi as to crack, “Ghe secret of the last is to 
immerse the mold for only a second in boiling water, and 
instantly to pull out the candles. The interior of these 
old-time tubes is not always perfectly smooth, so that molded 
candles are apt to be 
rough and uneven on 
the surface. Dipped 
candles are smooth, 
but their outlines are 
often wavey. “Dips” 
are rightly the favor- 
ite form, as they take 
us a little nearer to 
nature, and have no 
fancy features added 
by att. Av little ex- 
perimenting showed 
us how best to do all 
these things, and it 
then became an easy 
matter to produce 
candles in large 
quantities by either 
method. The dip- 
ping has the advant- 
age, because the can- 
EE sini dles may be made of 
any size, varying 
from mere tapers to 
almost any reasonable dimensions. The wax is known to 
druggists as “‘myrtle wax,” and is bought to be used (except 
by those who are reviving this old-fashioned custom of 
candle-making) chiefly for casting, and by furniture-makers 
for rubbing on heavy desk-drawers and on other move- 
able parts of furniture. 
The shrub is a member of a fragrant botanical order 
known to students as the ‘“‘Myricacee,” or the sweet gale 
family, and includes bayberry or wax-myrtle, sweet fern, 
and sweet gale, thriving best by the seashore. 
