333 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[JULT, 
centrated Lemonade, which we have before noticed 
as a most convenient substitute for fresh lemons. 
Those wlio live where lemons arc not ol)tainable, 
or where they are too expensive, mahe use of s’ub- 
stitutes. A kind of “ switchel ” is made in some lo¬ 
calities, which serves as a very good summer drink, 
and is much used in tlie hay field. It is made of 
vinegar, molasses and water, and flavored with 
ginger—a homely substitute for lemonade, but 
very good and much better than many things tliat 
are drank. Some of the acid fruits may be made to 
furnish cooling and pleasant beverages, and we 
allude to the matter now to suggest providing 
a stock for another summer. Currants, dried as 
described in another article, will be found very con¬ 
venient, as their acid is very refreshing, and a large 
supply may be put up with very little expenditure 
for sugar. Where the Barberry is common, a most 
excellent material for summer beverages may be 
stored up. The fruit simply preserved in sugar, 
makes a sort of conserve, whicli, infused in boiling 
water gives a palatable drink; but tlie best w.ay is 
to make a syrup by boiling the fruit in water and 
convert the strained liquid iuto syrup by adding a 
pound and a lialf of sugar to the pint. If bottled 
and set in a cool place it will keep a long time. 
Added to water in pal.atable quantity, it is not only 
pleasant in health but very useful as a drink in 
fevers. Raspberry Vinegar or Raspberry Shrub is 
one of the pleasant and nice articles that can be 
made in the family. Raspberries are placed in a 
jar and covered with strong vinegar, and set in a 
cool place for 34 hours. The next day as many 
more berries arc added as the vinegar will cover, 
and so for a third day. After the last berries have 
been in fora day, set the jar in a kettle of water, 
and bring it to a scald, and then strain out the juice 
througli a flannel. Add one pound of white sugar 
to each l}4 pint of juice, and heat in a tin or por¬ 
celain vessel to the boiling point, skim, and bottle. 
Do not boil any longer than necessary to remove 
the scum. Thus prepared it will keep for years. 
--» t — I o tJ— ► —-— 
Soap and Soap-Making. 
A “ Housekeeper ” writes to the Agriculturist ; 
“As the season has arrived for making this neces¬ 
sary article of domestic use among farmers, I wish 
to offer a few suggestions and relate a little of my 
experience in that line. Like most new house¬ 
keepers I thought it did not require any great 
amount of skill or experimental knowledge to 
make soap—for, thought I—there is nothing more 
natural than for oil and alkali to unite. So every 
thing all ready, in the “ New of the Moon ” I com¬ 
menced operations. But my lye and grease would 
not combine in spite of all my efforts. So I repair¬ 
ed to an old housekeeper to divine the cause. “0 !” 
said she, “You did not make in the new of the 
moon.” Yes I did though ! I made the same day 
that many of my neighbors made, and they had 
“ good luck.” Then she assigned several other rea¬ 
sons as foolish as that. In my school-days I had 
picked up a little Chemistry. While reflecting 
upon it I concluded that some other substance must 
be in the mixture that prevented it from uniting. 
And here I would remark that if farmers’ daugh¬ 
ters, and young ladies generally, would study less 
Algebra and other (to them) comparatively useless 
branches, and turn their attention more to Chemis¬ 
try, Nat. Philosophy, Botany, etc., they would find 
it of far more practical benefit. So while I pon¬ 
dered, it appeared to me that even if the moon had 
some influence upon animal and vegetable life, she 
certainly could not control oils and alkalies. Fi¬ 
nally, another individual told me to “put water in 
it and the soap would come.” I did so, but that 
made it very weak. After diligent inquiry and 
many absurd reasons “why the soap would not 
come,” I at last ascertained that the woman who 
assisted in trying the lard, etc., at “ killing time ” 
had salted tlie grease profusely! So it was the salt 
tliat prevented the oil and alkali from uniting. 
Putting in water weakened the solution. The result 
was,—in common parlance—“the soap come.” I 
would say to all housekeepers—old and young. 
keep salt out of your grease as much as possible 
if you would have no dilliculty in making soap. 
The best way for kceiiing the grease for tliat pur¬ 
pose is to have a vessel of weak lye iuto wliicli 
the gre.asecan be dropped as fast as it accumulates. 
Their it is safe from mold, rats and worms.” 
Strawberry Time in New York. 
A stranger visiting New York for the first time 
in the month of June, would think that a large part 
of the community were engaged in either selling, 
buying, or eating strawberries. The markets and 
stores are crowded with them ; traveling venders 
hawk them through the streets; passengers in cars 
and on foot carry baskets of them ; signs hang across 
tile street announcing strawberry short-cake; all 
tliese as well as the exhibitions of the fruit at the 
office of the Agriculturist, and the rooms of the 
American Institute, indicate New York believes in 
strawberries. Early in spring, the windows of the 
restaurants show fruit raised under glass, which 
tliose who don’t mind expense may taste—the 
general public can only look at it—but it satisfies 
them to know that strawberries are coming. In 
May, the southern counties of New Jersey send 
along their tribute of fruit, but very little of it 
gets into the mouth of the great public, and it is 
only when the warm suns of June are felt, that 
the fimit becomes abundant and cheap enough for 
everybody to have some. The best fruit, sent with 
care in neat boxes, never gets very cheap, and is 
only sold by the regular dealers, while the more 
common varieties in smalt baskets holding from a 
wine-glass-ful to a half pint, are sold by the venders 
who traverse the most I'emote streets. “ Here 
they air, three cents a bairskit”—(with a long 
drawl on the “ a-i r,” for the regular vender never 
says basket) is heard from morning till night. 
These venders are great institutions ; a two-forty 
($3.40) horse, a rickety wagon, a rough looking 
man with a strong voice, and one or two small boys 
with shrill, high voices, make up the establishment. 
If one goes to the market or grocers, and buys ber¬ 
ries, he will soon after reaching home hear the ven¬ 
ders, offering them for a cent or two less by the 
basket than he has just paid—but let him buy of the 
peddler and he will find that a baiVskit is a very in¬ 
definite quantity. There are tricks even in the ven¬ 
ders’ trade, and if one has the curiosity to know how 
berries can be retailed at wholesale prices, he must 
go to Washington market early in the morning, 
when the dealers get their supplies, and he will 
see how two baskets as put up by the grower are 
turned into three in the hands of the vender, by 
either transferring to smaller baskets kept for the 
purpose, or by a judicious division and shaking up 
of the ordinary baskets. The fruit in good seasons 
is reasonably cheap, but we wish that it might be 
stiii cheaper, so that the poorer people could get a 
chance at this great luxury without being obliged 
to pay even as much as “ Three cents a bairskit.” 
--- - -- 
Preserving Currants. 
Generally those who have currants at .all, have so 
many that they cannot well be used in the fresh 
state, and many go to w.aste, consequently we have 
frequent inquiries how they can be dried and made 
like those sold in the stores. We h.ave more than 
once stated in the “Basket” th.at the imported 
fruit was not a currant, but a very sm.all kind of 
grape, and that there was no process by which the 
currant we cultivate could be converted into a sim¬ 
ilar preserve. There is a way, however, in which 
curnants can be preserved without the use of so 
much sugar as is required in m.aking jelly. Last 
summer we saw a quantity put up by a lady for the 
use of the soldiers, and it seemed to us the best 
thing that could be made from the fruit. It w.as 
prepared in this way: Seven pounds of currants 
were cooked with one pound of sug.ar until the 
berries were well broken up, the whole was then 
put upon a colander and dr.ained, and the juice 
which was obtained in this way put again over the 
tire and cvajioralcd to a thick syi'Up. Tlie curr.ants 
whicli remained upon tlie colander were then put 
into tills syrup and cooked as dry as jiracticable 
witliout scorcliing. Tliis was tlicn spread upon 
plates and put in tlie sun to dry. Usually the 
upper surface dries in one day sufficient to allow 
the mass to be cut in small pieces and turned; 
tlie drying is continued until tlie pieces will not 
stick together. Pi'cpared thus it will keep well il 
packed in a box in a dry place, and is most excel¬ 
lent for making a refreshing drink, as it has all the 
grateful acid of the fruit without the accompani¬ 
ment of an excess of sugar. By soaking this dried 
fruit and cooking it witli more sugar, an atfreeable 
preserve may be made for the labia. In making 
jelly the currants should not be over ripe, a.? taken 
when fairly red they give a better quality of jelly, 
and do not require so mucli boiling. It is much 
better to squeeze the juice from the currants be¬ 
fore cooking, than it is to cook liotli sugar and cur¬ 
rants together and then strain. In obtaining the 
juice, a clothes wringer, now found in every well 
regulated household, will save a great de.al of labor. 
The berries are put rather loosely into a bag and 
the whole passed between the rollers of the 
wringer. The amount of sugar varies according to 
the character of the currants and individual taste, 
from 1 pound to 1 pound 3 oz. to tlie pint of juice. 
The juice is boiled or simmered and skimmed be¬ 
fore adding the sugar, and tlien the evaporation 
continued until it will harden ujion cooling. Upon 
this point no precise directions can be given, as 
juice from currants .at the right stage of ripeness 
will form a jelly with scarcely .any boiling, while 
that from riper berries will require to be boiled l.'i 
minutes or longer. This is a point which cxjie- 
ricnce only can determine. 
^ 
A Home-made Hearth Rug. 
A lady subscriber to the American Agriculturin 
writes: “Procure a coffee sack, tack it tightly on 
a frame of the size you wish your rug. Get a bkack 
smith to make you a crochet-needle about the size 
of a husking-peg, tapering rather more. With char¬ 
coal and rule ‘lay out’ on the sack the figure you 
wish for your rug. G.ather all the old woolen rags 
such as are too much worn for carpet, ‘Thrums, 
bits of wool, etc. Tear these in strips and with 
the hook in the right hand, hold the strip beneath 
in the left, thrust the hook through the meshes ol 
the stick, c.atch the r.ag .and pull it through about 
a half inch, then through again as netir to the first 
as possible. By sorting the different colors and 
following the patterns, a very beautiful article can 
be m.ade. After it is all filled up in this way, take 
a pair of sheep-shears or common scissors, large 
size, and shear it all off to an even surface. Old 
dresses are the best; heavy cloth will not work in 
well. I have seen such rugs in handsome parlors, 
and when tastefully made they arc equal to any.” 
Cooking without a Fire. 
In summer, it is a great comfort to be able to do 
most of the necessary cooking without a lire, we 
don’t say without heat—for we haven’t reached that 
pointas yet—but without makinga fire in the stove, 
generating many times more heat than is nccessarj’, 
thus rendering the apartment uncomfortable, the 
cook overheated, and it m.ay be cross. Some one 
has said that all hum.an aflcctions cease to exist 
above or below a cert.ain degree of the thermome¬ 
ter, and it must indeed be more than an ordinary 
mortal who can cook over a large Are on a hot 
July day, and remain perfectly sweet tempered and 
lovely. Now as a saver of temper, and in m.auy 
places of fuel, as well as a promoter of comfort, 
we remind our readers, of what we have before al¬ 
luded to, that a good amount of the fiimily cook¬ 
ing can be done by me.ans of kerosene or gas. In 
those loc.alitics where g.as is in use, a small gas stove 
will prepare breakfast .and tea with the gre.atcst 
ease and comfort. Some families use large gas 
stoves for all their summer cooking, but we h.ave 
