INTRODUCTION Xl 
six or eighteen months (or even longer), are vastly im- 
proved. They lose that element of ‘‘ roughness ”— 
almost acridity—which, in the fresh fruit, sometimes 
runs round the mouth and makes one shudder. . 
Apples and pears—the sharpest varieties, such as 
Pitmaston, Duchess, and Durondean amongst pears, 
should be chosen—should be bottled in quantity so as 
to prolong their season into May, June, July and 
August, when they are most flavoursome and refreshing 
simply turned out of the bottle into a glass dish and 
eaten with a cold milk pudding. ‘Try it ye who scoff 
and you will never scoff again | 
Most heartily then do I commend the book that you 
are writing to the attention of all ladies, whether it be 
for the replenishment of their own Store-rooms, or as a 
pleasant and convenient means of adding a trifle to a 
straitened income. In either case let them bottle and 
preserve all the surplus fruits they have in years of 
plenty, against the certain recurrence of the years of 
fruit famine which must come. And if they have no 
surplus let them seize every opportunity of buying fresh 
fruit when it is cheap and bottling it for winter and 
spring consumption. You and I, dear lady, know full 
well that no one who condescends to act upon our 
advice, and follows the directions which your book will 
give, will ever cease to be grateful to you and Miss 
Crooke in the major degree, and in the very minor to— 
Yours most sincerely, . 
W. WILKs, 
Vicar of Shirley, Sec. Royal Hort. Soc. 
June 15th, 1 gO7. 
