300 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[August, 
have no doubt that I shall enjoy the preserving and 
pickling processes very much. I always do. An 
excellent housekeeper, and one who has always 
been ready to adopt any seasonable expedient for 
saving- time or labor in the household, gave me the 
following recipe for skinning peaches. I can assure 
you, that if the directions are followed you will be 
able to remove the skins of your peaches pleasantly 
■and expeditiously. Place in an iron kettle two 
quarts of good, sweet, fresh, wood ashes (not coal 
aslies) cover with four quarts of soft water, and let 
it boil for a few minutes. Put in a dozen or so of 
peaches and keep the pot boiling; count 20 mod¬ 
erately and take out the peaches, throwing them 
immediately into a pail of cold water. Take one 
in your hand and with the thumb gently remove 
the skin. It, will slip off almost without this aid, 
leaving a round, beautiful ball in your hand; pass 
this to another pail of water, from which they may 
be halved, stoned, or quartered, as desired. If the 
lye fails to effect the skin, the ashes are not good, 
or it is not strong enough, and more ashes should 
be added. Remember that wood ashes only should 
be used. The peaches should on no account re¬ 
main iia the boiling lye long enough to cook them 
ever so slightly. The business of bottling peach¬ 
es is so simple that I hesitate to give directions, 
yet I can but remember that many housekeepers 
signally and positively fail to have their fruit keep. 
I have bottled peaches for the last seven years, 
some with and some without sugar, and never in 
that time have had a single bottle to ferment, mold 
on the top, or turn musty. A bottle or two of 
strawberries may have molded—occasionally some 
of them have turned watery—and at one time six 
bottles of blackberries fermented, and of course 
popped, but peaches have always been an invaria¬ 
ble success with me. The secret of bottling fruit 
successfully is not in the quantity of sugar used, 
not the absence of water, or in the length of time 
boiled,—all of which were actual requirements in 
tlie old-fashioned manner of preserving,—but the 
secret lies in there being no germ of fermentation 
left undestroyed in the fruit itself, and in the actual 
expulsion and exclusion of the air. Boiling the 
fruit expands it, and to make room for the expan¬ 
sion the air must be expelled, and hermetically 
sealing the bottle while the contents are in this 
heated and expanded state precludes the possibili¬ 
ty of 1 lie air again entering while the bottle and 
fruit are cooling.—Yes, you say, that may be logi¬ 
cal, but I fail to see through your explanation. 
Well, then, never mind the scieuce, but accept the 
recipe. When a quantity of peaches are ready, 
prepare your bottles by putting them into warm 
water to.season them. Place upon the stove in a 
clean porcelain or brass kettle, two quarts of water 
and perhaps a pound of white sugar, or sweeten to 
any extent desired. When boiling, put in a quantity 
of peaches either whole or in halves, and the mo¬ 
ment they boil positively all throughout, with a fork 
take out a peach at a time and fill one bottle, being- 
careful not to crush or bruise them; then with a 
hot teacup till up to the brim of the bottle with 
some of the boiling syrup, and seal immediately. 
I generally place each bottle on a tin plate by the 
side of the kettle and allow it to stand there until 
idled and scaled. Care should be taken to put into 
the kettle as nearly as possible a quantity of fruit 
proportionate to one or two or three bottles, as it is 
desirable not to renew the kettle while any fruit 
remains in the syrup, as they will boil too much 
and the syrup will not be clear, If one or two 
should be leftover, remove to a dish each time, and 
when the others are done, place these in the kettle, 
give them a boil up, and bottle by themselves or 
have them for tea. As the syrup is exhausted in 
the kettle add more water and sugar. 1 always en¬ 
deavor to have a kettle of boiling- water, on the 
back of the stove, and using this I do not have to 
wait long for the syrup to boil. Fourteen ordinary 
sized peaches halved will be sufficient for a quart 
bottle, and ten where the stones are not removed. 
ISjsJsesil 2®n<l«lisag - . —Mrs. II., 
Terre Ilaute, Ind. This institution of Yankee land is 
prepared by boiling a quart of milk and stirring in slowly 
a large teacupful of meal. Add two tablespoonfuls of 
sugar and one of butter, and spice to taste. It is very 
much improved for some tastes by slicing- up five or six 
apple's. Bake two hours or longer. It was customary to 
bake it all night with the brown bread in a brick oven. 
Fly-Time. 
Next to “ dust,” flies are probably the careful 
housekeeper’s greatest annoyance. Those we have 
must be direct descendants of those of Egypt, for 
they are great plagues. The common house-fly 
breeds in manure, and is different from the one 
which deposits -its eggs in meat. At the close of 
the warm season enough conceal themselves in 
cracks ami crannies to continue the race. We are 
sometimes asked how to destroy them. Unless 
they are kept out of the house, there is hut little 
use in attempting to destroy them. It i* an old 
saying “ For every one killed a dozen will come to 
liis funeral.” Most of the destructive agents de¬ 
pend upon their attractiveness, and arc quite sure 
to draw as many as they kill. Leaving out of ques¬ 
tion the various traps, home-made and otherwise, 
we notice some of the other fly destroyers in use. 
An article is sold at the drug stores and elsewhere 
under the name of Cobalt and Flv-powder. This 
is mixed with sweetened water and set about in 
plates. It will kill flies — and human beings also. 
Don't touch it. There is no Cobalt about it; it is 
only crude metallic arsenic ground to powder, and 
is a deadly poison. There have been lives enough 
lost already through the use of this dangerous stuff 
sold under a false name. An infusion of quassia 
wood, sweetened, will kill flics, if they cat it. This 
is harmless. We believe that some of the “ fly¬ 
papers” arc prepared with this. In New York, 
and we suppose in other large cities, the regular 
bug and rat destroyers sell what they call “ Catch 
’em Alive, Oh !” This is sheets of paper smeared 
with a mixture of rosin and some fatty matter, to 
make a sticky coating much like a freshly var¬ 
nished surface. If a fly alights upon this he is 
held fast by his feet and struggles until death 
comes to his relief. There are other fly-destroying 
devices, but these will do as examples, as we do 
not believe in any of them. The only way to man¬ 
age with flies is to keep them out. All rooms 
when not in use should be kept perfectly dark in 
fly-time, and those in constant use be provided 
with, screens to both windows and doors. These 
arc frames upon which is stretched wire cloth, or 
the less expensive mosquito netting. This is no 
little trouble, and freedom from flies is obtained 
at considerable sacrifice of one’s own freedom of 
motion. To us there is a sense of confinement in ' 
rooms provided with screens like these, and we pre¬ 
fer open windows and free air, even if we must 
have the flies along with them. The number of 
flies will be much lessened if great care he taken to 
keep all sweets and everything attractive to them 
carefully covered up and out of their reach. 
Wherever there is anything out of doors that at¬ 
tracts flics, it is as good as a warning from the 
Sanitary Inspector that it should be removed. 
The Cooking of Vegetables. 
It is astonishing, nay lamentable, to observe how 
little variety in the way of vegetables is enjoyed 
by farmers’ families. We arc reminded of this by 
a letter from Mrs. A. W., who is determined to 
have a greater variety in her “ garden patch.” She 
finds upon looking over our garden hints that there 
are many things that she knew nothing about. 
Among these are cauliflower, egg plant, salsify, 
spinach, okra, martynia, etc. The writer need not 
ask us “ not to smile at her ignorance,” for there 
are thousands all over the country who never even 
saw these things, much less have them as a part of 
their daily food. The Agriculturist has for years 
been striving to make the farmer’s home more 
pleasant, and one of the ways of doing this is to 
advocate a greater variety of wholesome food. Our 
correspondent complains that, while she can learn 
from our pages where to get the seeds and how to 
cultivate the plants, she has no instructions how to 
prepare them for the table. Perhaps we have said 
less about cooking vegetables than we ought, and 
we are always glad to have our household friends 
indicate the kind of information they want. It 
will be impracticable to dispose of our corre¬ 
spondent’s list in a single article, so we will begin 
with the simplest—and we had almost said the best— 
The Cauliflower —and what is said about this 
applies to broccoli, which is much like it, but a 
hardier plant, in which the “ head,” or eatable por¬ 
tion, is green or purplish, instead of white. Some 
boil the cauliflower whole, but we prefer to divide 
it into several pieces, as it cooks more evenly, and 
also allows one to ascertain if any insect or slug 
lias secreted itself within. Wash the head, and 
put it into a pot of boiling water that has been 
slightly salted, and let it boil until the stem end 
becomes soft. Remove with a skimmer, as it is too 
tender to take up with a fork, place upon a dish, 
and pour over a dressing of drawn butter—the 
simple sauce made with butter, flour, and water, 
—and that’s all there is of it, except to serve it. It 
is no more trouble than cabbage, but vastly more 
delicate to the taste and digestible in the stomach. 
Many eat it just as served, with the butter dressing, 
while others prefer to-use vinegar, as with cab¬ 
bage. To spoil cauliflower, boil it with meat. 
Spinach. —We gave directions a few years ago, 
and briefly repeat. One way is to put it into water 
(boiling, of course), cook until done, take up, 
drain, and serve. In short, treat it like any other 
“greens.” An improvement on this is to take up 
the spinach when done, chop it, and warm it 
wiUi a plenty of butter, and serve. To have 
spinach at its best, it should be cooked in a very 
little water. Wash, and place in a saucepan with 
only the water that adheres to the leaves, add a 
lump of butter, and stew gently, with the pan close¬ 
ly covered, until tender, Take out, chop fine, and 
return to the saucepan with more butter—no mat¬ 
ter how much, hardly, for spinach will allow of tlie 
use of a large quantity, if one has it to spare. 
Seasoning of salt and pepper may be added—some 
use nutmeg—heat up again, and serve. It is very 
common to garnish or ornament the dish with 
slices of cold boiled eggs. Other of the less known 
vegetables will be treated of at another time. 
Recipes for Dyeing Carpet Warp. 
Miss “E.," Erie Co., N. Y., sends the following 
recipes for dyeing carpet warp, which she says have 
been well tested. From what we know of dyeing, 
the directions seem practical. It should be borne 
in mind that the material when wet always looks 
darker than it will when dry, and in, order to judge 
whether the desired shade is obtained, it is neces¬ 
sary to wring out a small portion quite dry before 
deciding that the shade is deep enough. After the 
material is dried, it should be thoroughly rinsed iu 
an abundance of soft water until no more color is 
imparted to the water. 
C«i"eeJi.—For three pounds of warp, take one 
pound of fustic, one half pound of logwood chips, 
a piece of blue vitriol the size of a hickory nut, and 
three pails of water; boil one hour. 
Purple.—For fifteen pounds of warp take four 
pounds logwood chips ; boil them in two pails of 
water. Dissolve one pound alum in a pail of hot 
water; pour the alum water to that containing- the 
logwood, and boil your cotton in it one hour. 
Yellow. —For five pounds of cotton, dissolve 
eight oz. sugar of lead in four qts. of warm water, 
and dissolve five oz. bichromate of potash in three 
qts. of warm water. Put the cotton in the lead 
water first, wring it out and put it in the bichro¬ 
mate of potash water; continue until you have the 
shade you wish. 
l*5ialc. —For live pounds of cotton, take two 
pounds of Nieauragua or Red wood, four of solu¬ 
tion of tin; boil the wood an hour in six qts. of 
water. Pour the dye into a tub and add the solution 
of tin, put in your cotton, let it staud five minutes, 
and you will have a nice color. [The solution of 
tin may be had of the druggists under the name of 
the chloride or muriate of tin.—E ds.) 
