i9io.] 



Fruit Bottling. 



i95 



stroying the germs which cause decay. If the germs are 

 destroyed, the fruit or vegetable will keep sound and good 

 for a considerable time if kept perfectly air-tight. Some 

 samples of fruit which were bottled four years ago are still 

 good. This result can be obtained by simply filling an air- 

 tight jar with fruit, capping it, and subjecting the bottle, 

 with its contents, to steam heat at a certain temperature. 

 The process is as follows : — 



The fruit which is to be sterilised should be gathered on 

 a dry day, carefully sorted, and, where possible, graded into 

 different baskets or pans. It must always be remembered 

 in selecting the fruit that bad fruit is bad fruit, and inferior 

 fruit can never be made into choice fruit by any process of 

 drying, bottling, or making into jam. Good fruit and its 

 products always have a certain value, and the preserved 

 article can always command a fair price. 



All fruits require certain preliminary preparation before 

 putting into bottles : for instance, gooseberries should be 

 topped and tailed, currants shredded from their stalks with 

 light fingers, rhubarb should be skinned and cut into pieces 

 of a uniform size ; cherries must be stalked, and, if possible, 

 stoned ; the hull should be removed from raspberries y 

 plums, greengages, and damsons must have their stalks 

 removed; large juicy plums should be cut into halves before 

 being placed in the bottle ; peaches and nectarines should be 

 skinned, stoned, and halved ; apples and pears must be 

 peeled and cut into halves and quarters. A silver or plated 

 knife onlv should be used for fruit. 



When the fruit has been prepared, it is carefully packed 

 into a wide-mouthed bottle with a proper cap ; the more care 

 that is taken in placing the fruit in the bottle the better 

 is the result. Soft fruit, like gooseberries and currants, 

 require shaking together in order to be packed closely ; 

 rhubarb should be placed in upright rows as far as 

 possible ; plums also should be arranged in rows, because 

 the bottle will hold more if they are put in in this way. The 

 taste and ingenuity of the fruit bottler has ample scope for 

 display at this stage. 



Having filled the bottle with fruit packed closely together, 



P 2 



