578 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Bottling Fruits. 



Whether tins or bottles are used, the preserving of the fruit is 

 conducted in much the same manner. To secure good results, care 

 must be exercised to add the proper quantity of sugar and to use the 

 right degree of heat. 



The sugar should first be dissolved in water, and serves mainly to 

 improve the flavour, and to help the fruit to maintain its shape. No 

 general rules can be laid down on the subject of the density of the sugar 

 solution, as the kind of fruit, its ripeness, and personal tastes, and other 

 points, all have to be considered. The fruit is then placed in the sugar 

 solution, preferably steam-jacketed pans, boiled until soft, and then placed 

 in a basin or other vessel till cool. The pans should be skimmed as the 

 fruit stews, and due care should be exercised in noting the proportion of 

 sugar used and time of boiling for future guidance. The fruit is afterwards 

 placed evenly in the tins or bottles, and the receptacle filled with the 

 liquid from the boiling pan. If soft fruit be placed in the bottles while hot, 

 it is liable to break, and in any case it contracts after boiling, and a 

 certain portion of the bottle is found to be filled with clear juice, which 

 should be strained off by tilting the bottle on its side, and the space should 

 then be filled with fruit. About five bottles full of hot fruit will fill four 

 bottles with cold fruit. 



Various kinds of fruit are treated in different ways, some of which are 

 described under the head of bottling. Great care should be taken to pack 

 the fruits close together in the bottles, and a long spoon formed by 

 binding a teaspoon in a cleft stick, bending the bowl as desired, will be 

 found useful for deep bottles or jars, and the fruit should be gently 

 pressed from the top or the bottles jarred on the table as the packing 

 proceeds. 



Methods of Fastening. — When the tops of jars are covered with 

 vegetable parchment, this should first be cut into squares larger than the 

 diameter of the vessel, and then soaked in clean cold water so as to 

 expand the material. It should be laid over the neck of the jar when 

 wet, and tied tightly with string. As the parchment dries, it will again 

 contract until, when dry, it forms a drum-like appearance. 



When corks are used they should always first be boiled, and the neck 

 of the bottle or jar should, when corked, be dipped in a hot melted com- 

 position of paraffin and beeswax, or into hot sealing-wax, with a view of 

 excluding the air. 



When screw-capped bottles are used, care should be taken to screw the 

 caps down tightly, and it may frequently be possible to make another half- 

 turn in the cap a short time later, especially if the fruit be put up in a hot 

 state. 



Tins. — The old-fashioned tins with the lids soldered on, and the steam 

 allowed to escape by a hole to be soldered up when the tin becomes cold, 

 are hardly ever used in Germany now. 



There are now two new forms of tin which are rapidly making their 

 way to the front in the Fatherland. The first consists of a tin tube, 

 lacquered inside;, with the top and bottom rim bent outwards. On this is 

 laid a disc of metal of slightly wider diameter, the edge of which is bent 



