3-46 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
us, and with many of our friends. I was glad to see 
tbat William Sullen Bryant knows Us virtues, and 
mentions it in bis letter describing bis metbod of liv- 
ing at such a good old age. He uses it as a breakfast 
dish. We more frequently take it for our supper. 
Oatmeal is very nutritious. It has an odd taste, 
that is not always agreeable just at first, but it is 
generally much relished after a little trial. Some 
like the gruel thiuner than others do. We use 
about two level table-spoonfuls to a quartof water. 
Make a batter of the meal and a little water, and 
stir it into boiling water. Let it boil gently from 
fifteen to thirty minutes, stirring it inest of the 
time. Of course most people will salt the water. 
I do myself, though not sure that it is necessary or 
best. Cream is all the seasoning we care for after 
it comes to the table, though some use sugar' also. 
Stirred thicker, it makes an excelleut pudding. 
Knee-Breeches.— Mrs. B , Holley, N. T. 
The little "knee-breeches" are to be made, as you 
suppose, in two Eeparate pieces, and fastened each 
to a button, or through a button-bole in the skirt, 
one on each sicte of the child's body. Make them 
a little longer than the pattern given in the Agri- 
culturist shows. Tou will find no difficulty in ar- 
ranging the diaper under it — bringing the corners 
through under the straps of the little breeches. In 
spring or fall weather I sometimes put these on 
over the cotton drawers of my two-year-old baby. 
Hints on Making Pickles. 
BT ESTELLE EDGERTON. 
Care should be taken to procure unadulterated 
vinegar. It is very unsatisfactory to make pickles 
unless you are sure your vinegar is perfectly pure. 
It is better to go some distance from home to pr»- 
cure reliable vinegar than to use that which is not 
warranted free from foreign acid. The quantity of 
salt water used in scalding the vegetables will indi- 
cate the quantity of vinegar required. About a 
pound and a half of salt to a gallon of water is the 
usual allowance for this operation. All vegetables, 
excepting onions, make better pickles, if young 
and tender. I know a lady who pickled a peck of 
yellow butter-beans, full-grown, and bought at the 
grocery at a fancy price. They were highly and ex- 
pensively spiced, but wheH brought to table were 
so tough and stringy that it was found impossible to 
cat them. Beans are not fit to pickle after the seed 
has commenced to absorb the juices of the pod. 
The smaller and greener bean-pods arc, the nicer the 
pickle. Wheu the conditions are right, they make 
as delicious a pickle as can be made. 
Very early and green melons make a fine pickle. 
If they will not snap off, rind and all, without ef- 
fort, they are uufit for use. 
Most housekeepers differ in their methods of 
making pickles ; but if good vinegar is used, the 
spices the same, and the vegetables tender, the re- 
sults will be very nearly the same. It is only a 
question of time. What I mean is this : In the 
long run it does Hot matter so much what the salt- 
iug process has been, whether they have been in 
salt three days, twenty-four hours, or only a few 
minutes. Very excellent pickles cau be made with- 
out putting the vegetable in salt at all, but it will 
take a longer time for the vinegar to penetrate it. 
The object of putting vegetables designed for pres- 
ent vinegar-pickling in salt and water is to extract 
or reduce the natural juices of the fruit in order to 
make room for the vinegar to enter readily. A very 
little alum dissolved in the vinegar restores the 
crispness lost through the action of the salt. All 
young tender and green vegetables are adapted to 
acid pickling, to which sugar would be inappropri- 
ate ; but ripe vegetables, which have lost their snap, 
such as yellow cucumbers, are better when the 
acid used receives a due proportion of sugar. Pick- 
led fruits are better when the sugar predominates 
over the acid of the vinegar. Cloves, ciunamou, 
and cassia-buds are, in my opinion, only adapted to 
those pickles in which sugar is used. Mace, mus- 
tard-seed, capsicums or red peppers, green peppers, 
garlic, black peppercorns, ginger-root, and bay- 
leaves are best adapted to a purely acid pickle. 
India Pickle. — After peeling and slicing a root 
of horseradish, chop it fine, also a half-dozen me- 
dium-sized onions, three or four green peppers, re- 
moving the seeds, and a cabbage. Pour over the 
whole, after mixing, a weak brine, and allow it to 
stand over night. Spice some viuegar with all- 
spice and mace, adding cloves and cinnamon, if 
you like. Heat the vinegar and 6picc to boiling, 
with a small quantity of alum, and turn it over 
the pickle. It will be lit to eat in three weeks. 
Young Beans. — Gather them when quite small 
and tender. Pour over them a brine made in the 
proportion of an ounce of salt to a quart of water. 
It should be scalded. Let them stand over uight. 
Drain off the brine, and pour over hot spiced vine- 
gar with a trifle of alum. 
Nasturtiums. — Let them stand in salt and water 
a few days, when they should be well drained and 
scalding-hot vinegar poured over them. No spice. 
Put into a narrow-mouthed bottle and. cork well. 
Peppers, Green. — Take out the seeds. Soak 
them for a few days in salt aud water. Then pour 
over them hot vinegar. They are good when opened 
carefully on the side, stuffed with cabbage, and then 
put into vinegar. 
Mangoes are made of young and tender mel- 
ons gathered late in the season. Cut out a small 
slice and remove the seedy portion. Stuff witli 
small cucumbers, rudish-pods, nasturtiums, young 
onions, and cauliflower, or any thing you like, 
using mustard-seed as a spice, about a teaspoouful 
put inside of each melon ; replace the piece and tie 
it on. The melons and stuffing ingredients should 
be soaked in brine for Two days be/ore fixing them 
for the vinegar. Pour the vinegar over them scald- 
ing hot, with a piece of alum as large as a hickory 
nut to a gallon. 
Peaches, scalded in salt and water, thoroughly 
wiped, and hot spiced vinegar poured over them, 
make a good pickle. 
Purple or Red Cabbage. — Take off all the 
tough outside leaves, slice them thinly and evenly, 
put them in layers, and sprinkle salt freely over 
each layer, and let them remain twenty-four hours. 
Drain the cabbage well. Boil up some vinegar aud 
add alum, and 6pice to your taste, and pour hot 
over it. Repeat this process for three or four days. 
Gherkins. — Scald in salt and water. Drain aud 
pour hot spiced vinegar over them. 
Cucumbers. — There are many different methods 
for putting up this fine pickle ; almost all are good. 
From two to four inches long, and as thick as the 
finger, is the best size. The quicker grown, the 
better. One way is to give them a good scald-up 
in brine, wipe, and pour over spiced hot vinegar. 
Another is to soak them in hot salt and water 
twenty-four hours, and then pickle them. Tou 
may put them in salt and water as you pick them, 
and finish them when they are all collected from 
the vines. Scalding several times will make them 
green and brittle. Peppers and onions improve 
the flavor. Horseradish and green grapes are ex- 
cellent, added to cucumbers, aud, in fact, improve 
pickles generally. 
Artichokes, Jerusalem. — Soak in salt and 
water for a few days, or until the skin can be re- 
moved. Rub off the skin, and pour boiling spiced 
vinegar over them. Let them stand in the vinegar 
four or five days, scald up again, and repeat this 
until the artichokes arc thoroughly pickled. 
Onions. — The best time to pickle onions is in 
October. Small button onions are the best. Cut off 
the end smoothly with a sharp knife. Pour a 
strong, hot lye over them. Let them 6tand until 
the skin is loose. Pour off the lye, and wash them 
in clear water before putting in the hands. The skin 
may now be readily removed. When skinned pour 
over them a good brine, and let them stand a week, 
or until they are transparent. Drain aud pour boil- 
ing viuegar over them. They need very little, if 
any spice. If not convenient to use lye, the roots 
and tops may be cut off smoothly, and the salt and 
water put over them before the skin is taken off. 
In that case they will not affect the eyes in the 
usual unpleasant manner. 
Cauliflowers should be parboiled, cut into 
small pieces, and allowed to stand in a brine a few- 
days. They may then be drained, and spiced vine- 
gar poured over. They may be colored with beet- 
root vinegar, or, if added to the red cabbage, they 
will turn of the 6ame color as the cabbage. 
Peach Mangoes.— Cut off a slice from the stalk- 
end large enough to allow the stone to be removed. 
They may then be filled with a few eschalots, a lit- 
tle horseradish, or chillies, adding spice. Replace 
the piece, and pour over scaldiug-hot vinegar. 
» i » ♦» i » 
Salad Dressing-.— " B. L. J.," Burlington, 
N. J., sends what he considers an improvement on 
the Salad Dressing given in July : " First are 
the necessary tools. There is now made and sold at 
most furnishing and country stores, a wire mud- 
dler (egg-beater), which is worked by a spring in 
the handle, and which makes what was formerly a 
task in mixing salad dressing, a mere pastime. 
With this take a large-sized tumbler, or a bowl, and 
put in the yolk of a fresh raw egg. Drop on it ten 
drops of vinegar; then pour in a steady stream of 
pure oil, about one eighth of an inch in diameter 
(keeping the muddler rapidly going by pressing the 
handle down, and allowing it to spring back), until 
a gill of oil is added to the egg. It will rapidly 
thicken, until the whole mass adheres to the mud- 
dler, and can be lifted by it from the glass. Now, 
in a cup, mix two mustard-spoonfuls of mustard, one 
full salt-spoon of salt, half that quantity (or less, 
according to taste) of cayenne paper (cayenne being- 
more wholesome than black), and one teaspoon/id of 
pure cider-vinegar. Mix well, and then add gradu- 
ally to the oil and egg, stirring rapidly and well, 
until it is brought again to the original consistency. 
"Sandwiches are excellent when the above dress- 
ing, minus the vinegar and pluls more mustard, is 
used to spread over the bread instead of butter. 
No good 6alad dressing can be made unless the oil 
is not only pure, but also kept in a cool place, and 
it is improved by placing the oil bottle, for a short 
time before making, in ice-water. I presume you 
have heard the saying that 'it takes four men to 
make a good 6alad — a spendthrift for oil, a miser for 
vinegar, a judge for salt, aud a madman to stir.' '" 
Recipes, 
Sweet-Breads. — To cook, put a piece of 
butter into the pan you use ; let it get rather hot 
Now put in the sweet-breads. Do not blanch or 
scald, or wash them, if you w r ant them prime. Do 
not season them now. Let them cook thoroughly. 
When a flue brown, sprinkle salt all over them. 
Put no pepper — pepper is too strong for them. 
Pour a venjlitlle water into the pan. Boil it up and 
pour on the dish. A little pork or ham or bacon 
fried, should be served with them. Butter im- 
proves them very much, and you may be generous 
in its use, wheu cookiug for the table. For inva- 
lids, as little as possible should be used ; and if but- 
ter is not allowed the patient, a trifle of bacon 
liquor or lard must be used instead. 
"Patent Fly-brush." — "J. A. W," 
Springfield, 111., says: To avoid the necessity o I 
using a fly-brush at the table during meals, when 
flies are troublesome, I pour a thin stream of mo' 
lasses upon the rim of a plate, and set it on thu 
side of the table, where the flies will get the least 
disturbance; and so many of them will gather on 
the plate, that those not thus gathered will causo 
little annoyance. Wheu the plate is first set, it is 
well t<5 wave the hand to drive them towards it. 
I call it my patent Jly-brus7i. 
Green Corn. — The following is going tho 
rounds of the papers, and is soot us by a lady who 
says tbat she has tried it with success. We have 
not tried it. Dissolve Vyi ez. Tartaric Acid in J^ 
pint of water. Cut the com from the cob and cook 
it. Add two tablespoonfnls of the acid solution 
to each quart of corn and can immediately. When 
used stir half a teaspoonful of soda in each two 
quarts of corn. Allow to stand 3 or 4 hours beforo 
cooking. Then cookius fresh corn. Here is a chance 
to experiment, but we have no great faith in it. 
