AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
343 
son or Grover & Baker machine can now be 
had for $50. These $50 machines do their work 
as well as those formerly sold for $100, though 
they are less expensively got up, as respects style 
and finish. The other styles are correspondingly 
/educed in price. 
Truly, the days and nights of the everlasting 
“stitch! stitch I stitch 1 ” with the slow hand 
needle, are fast being numbered, and we can but 
rejoice in the event. 
The Premium of a Sewing Machine for obtain¬ 
ing new subscribers, offered last month, has been 
materially changed, in consequence of the reduc¬ 
tion in price, and the terms on which we are now 
able to offer a machine (see last page of this num¬ 
ber) will enable a large number of our lady readers 
to secure one with comparatively little effort. 
Is Saleratus Poisonous! 
The gentle insinuation, last month, that the 
small amount of alkali, soda or saleratus, used in 
cooking, is not so very dangerous an affair as 
many would have us believe, has called out a 
perfect shower of responses. We by no means 
feel “ extinguished,” however. The late arrival 
of these communications prevents attention to 
them this month, but we will make room. for. one 
or more in our next. An “airing” on the-subject 
will perhaps do good. 
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To Preserve Quinces Tender. 
Every housekeeper knows the difficulty of pre¬ 
serving quinces so that they will not become 
hard. The following directions, from home expe¬ 
rience, obviate the difficulty effectually, and pro¬ 
duce a tender quince sweetmeat: Pare the fruit, 
and cut into quarters, eighths, or rings as you 
may fancy. Then boil in water until soft, and 
take out the pieces, placing them on plates to 
cool. Boil the parings and seeds in water, and 
to the jelly like liquid obtained, add one pound of 
sugar for each pound of fruit. Boil and skim to 
clarify, add the cooked fruit, and boil gently for 
half an hour. Take out the fruit, and boil down 
the liquid until it assumes a jelly like appearance 
on cooking a little of it, and then return the fruit, 
and put away for future use. The extra good 
quality will repay any extra trouble. 
Apples with Quinces.—A very nice sauce is 
made by taking at the rate of a peck of quinces to 
a bushel of sweet apples, and preparing as above, 
except using only half as much sugar, and boiling 
down the second syrup without removing the fruit. 
-- m*m. -.«■- 
Superior Sweet Apple, Pear and Quince 
Pickles. 
A long trial in our own family has proved the 
good quality of pickled sweet apples, pears and 
quinces prepared as follows : Take one peck of 
fruit, pare, quarter and core them and add 4 
pounds of Sugar and one quart of vinegar. Cook 
the whole together until the fruit is tender, then 
remove it with a skimmer to plates on which it 
is to be spread out to cool, and afterwards put into 
glazed earthen-ware or glass jars. Then make a 
new syrup like the first, but a little sweeter, say 
one quart of vinegar and 5 pounds of sugar, boil¬ 
ing with it a little bag containing ± ounce of 
ground cinnamon and £ ounce of ground cloves. 
Post this syrup over the apples leaving the bag 
of spices in the syrup. Prepared in this way a 
very nice sweetmeat is obtained which is a 
sweetish tart but not sour, and the flavor will be 
highly relished by most persons. They will keep 
a long time, are not so indigestible and unhealthy 
as fruit stewed down in sugar to the keeping 
point. By an occasional boiling, the preparation 
might be kept for years if desired. It is cheap, as 
the cost for a peck of fruit is only 9 lbs. of sugar, 
2 quarts of vinegar, and a little cinnamon and 
cloves. The first liquid used for boiling the fruit 
may be taken for cooking a new lot, or it may be 
used for preparing other sauce for immediate use. 
The best mode of Drying Pumpkins. 
We love pumpkin pies, even when there is an 
abundance of tree fruits, and we shall this year 
love them all the more because the tree fruits are 
scarce. We have tried all modes of drying pump¬ 
kins, but no plan is, we think, equal to the one 
we recommended a year ago, and which we have 
recently tried on a larger scale than hitherto. It 
is this : Take the ripe pumpkins, pare, cut into 
small pieces, stew soft, mash and strain through, 
a colander, as if for making pies. Spread this 
pulp on plates in layers, not quite half an inch 
thick; dry it down in the stove oven kept at so 
low a temperature as not to scorch it. In 
about a day it will become dry and crisp. The 
sheets thus made can be stowed away in a dry 
iplace and they are then always ready for use for 
pies or sauce. Soak the pieces over night in a 
little milk, and they will return to a nice pulp, as 
delicious as the fresh pumpkin^-tue think much 
more so. The quick drying after cooking, pre¬ 
vents any portion from slightly souring ; as is al¬ 
ways the case when the uncooked pieces are 
dried ; and the flavor is much better preserved. 
The after cooking is saved, this plan is quite as 
little trouble as the old mode, to say nothing of 
its superiority in the quality of material obtained. 
Try it and you will not return to the old method 
we are sure, and you will also become a greater 
lover of pumpkin pie “the year round,” and feel 
less the loss of the fruit crop. 
-— --» - i m m » «.- 
A Good Citron Cake. 
We don’t like preserved citron in cake, or 
rather it always appears like an indigestible ma¬ 
terial. But since “ what is one man’s poison is 
another’s meat,” we give the following recipe fur¬ 
nished by a lady of our acquaintance who says it 
is good. Mix well together 4 coffee cups of flour, 
2 of sugar, 2 of sour cream (that’s good if you have 
it —Ed.) and the whites of 8 eggs. (Save the 
yolks to go with our broiled ham— Ed.) Out Im¬ 
pound of citron in thin pieces and roll them in 
flour. Now stir in quickly one teaspoonful of 
cooking soda made very fine, and finish with ad¬ 
ding the floured citron. Bake at once as rapidly 
as possible without burning. 
Nota Bene. —Rolling in flour, the raisins, cur¬ 
rants, or other fruit, and adding them to cake 
just before baking prevents their sinking to the 
bottom, as frequently happens without this pre¬ 
caution. 
Cracker Pudding. 
We can testify that the following is not “ bad 
to take.” Stir into 3 pints of sweet milk, 2 beat¬ 
en eggs, 3 tablespoonfuls of sugar, and any spice 
you like best. Break in 4 soda crackers, and 
when soaked soft, stir in as many raisins as you 
like—the directions given to us, say 1 pound to 
the above quantity of materials, but for our per¬ 
sonal consumption we would say, “ more pud¬ 
ding and less raisins if you please, madam with 
quantum sufficit of vanilla flavor, or of nutmeg. 
Curing Hams. 
The slaughter of the porkers begins this montftt 
on all well regulated farms, from Aroostook, to- 
the farthest West and South to Mason and Dix¬ 
on’s line, and only a little later farther South 
we see the sleek beauties suspended by the gam¬ 
brels, their open mouths biting the cob, from! 
which they shelled the corn while living. The 
hams and shoulders, destined for bacon, are liable 
to be spoiled in two ways—by too much salt and 
by too little. Not one ham in ten offered in the 
market is properly cured for human food. Many 
persons put the hams in with the other pork, and 
spoil it. Many of the recipes offered are too in¬ 
definite to be of any service. The following 
cures bacon fit for a king, or his eldest daughter. 
For one hundred pounds of ham take salt, ten 
pounds—Turks Island is best—six ounces of salt¬ 
petre, and two pounds of brown sugar. Mix the 
ingredients as evenly as possible and rub them 
upon the flesh side of the hams and shoul¬ 
ders. Pack the hams in a clean cask,, 
skin side downward. Put a stone and board om 
top of the hams and fill up with clean cold water- 
so as to cover them. In a few days all will be*, 
dissolved and form a pickle just right. But the: 
salt in the solution is continually sinking to the' 
bottom. Therefore, either change the pickle— 
pouring it out and pouring back again—or if the 
barrel is but partly filled roll it around a few times 
so as to stir the contents thoroughly, as often as 
once a week. The neglect of stirring the pickle, 
after it is made, spoils many a barrel of hams. 
In six weeks they will be cured just right. Smoke 
them ten days, to two weeks, in a cool smoke 
house. Put them in tight cloth wrappers, white¬ 
wash the wrappers, and they will keep for years. 
This is our family recipe, used for fourteen years, 
and always makes quarters of ham, that keeps the 
better half in constant good humor at meal time. 
Recipes. 
To keep Meat Frozen. 
H. A. Sheldon, Middlebury, Vt., sent in the fol¬ 
lowing, in January, but it has been crowded over 
until now Keep it in mind until next Winter : 
“After the meat is well frozen, I tie it in papers 
and pack in a flour barrel with clean straw, 
pushing the straw down tightly with alhin lath. 
I then put the barrel in a box, five or six inches 
larger than the barrel every way , and fill the space 
with dry saw-dust. Last Winter I kept meat 
thus in fine condition until April.” 
HIorse>radisii. 
Miss Lucy A. Watson, Orange Co., Vt., sug¬ 
gests that horse radish may be kept Jrcsh for ear¬ 
ly Spring use, by taking up the roots in the Fall 
and burying them in sand in the corner of the 
cellar. They may then be used before the ground 
thaws in Spring, and even during the Winter. 
Seasoning; Stiasage Meat. 
Mrs. Bissell (address lost) sends the following 
to th e Agriculturist: For 50 lbs. of meat, take 
II ounces of salt, 5 table-spoonfuls of pounded 
saltpetre, 5 table-spoonfuls of ground black pep¬ 
per, 4 table-spoonfuls of ground allspice, 5 table¬ 
spoonfuls of sage. Mix them well together, and 
then incorporate well with the meat. 
Genuine royalty consists not in great pomp, but 
in great virtues. 
Pride rs like a shepherd ; it driveth men whiffy 
er it pleaseth, like a flock of sheep. 
Be ever vigilant—seldom suspicious. 
