Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1885-12-14
Miscellaneous.


Fruit-preserving for sale is q promising
home industry. Work grows scarcer IN
country villages year by year, and no
greater favor can Be done, especially 70
women, than to put . new industry IN
practice. This has been the bearing year
for orchards, and, a. usual, through the
country, loads Of fruit have gone to waste
which ought to have kept the rural poPu-
lation busy preserving it for winter sale:
The canneries supply the popular demand
it Is true, but there Is growing taste Tor
good homemade preserves, and for the
fruit-pastes and syrups which are only
supplied by the foreign trade at high
prices. There is nothing in these pre-
served fruits which our own good house,
keepers cannot equal. from the TURKISH
roJaat lakoum, which Mr.. Williams praises
30 highly in his Chemistry oil Cookery ana
which is fruit juice condensed to dry lei-
", to the candied cherries and plums
which sell for q dollar poundin decorated
French boxes. One form OF rohdt IdEot!ns
or ..lumps of delight" is better known by
Americans as fig paste. But apple ana
ounce or damson pastes are inner than tne
ig sweetmeat, and our country lacks nell
Their fig nor nectarine to compete with
Turkish sweetmeats.
There is no reason why def housekeep-
ers through this country should not ada 10
their incomes by this simple manufacture,
which can be carried on in their own
homes, without expense, or the necessity
of learning an entirely new occupation.
ANY women who can make current Jelly
can make the continental fruit cenfectlons
and what adapts them specially to home
industry is that these delicacies must be
made in small quantities to insure perfec-
ton. Choice preparations for the table
cannot be turned out by wholesale. Inc
high-priced Levantine cOnserves are made
in harems and peasants houses, with no
other apparatus than an earthen cooking
vessel and portable furnace. Stoves
are unknown there. The methods are
primitive and simple, the results are
among our costliest desserts.
Besides these, our old fashioned nation
al fruit preparations deserve revival. The
apple and peach butter, the cider apple
sauce, that used to be part of the plenlsh-
ing in every farmers home in Indiana
when I was Young, were excellencles
which would carry the trade" and have
the widest export if they could be found
at all. Canned fruit and factory jams
poorly supply the place of thes e generous,
fragrant sauces, which contain the rich
ness of the fruit boiled down in its native
dextrne and sugar Pray. did you ever
taste cider apple sauce-the sweet cider
condensed to the thickness and color OF
strained honey. with clear quarters of APP
pie and ounce floating in it, never cloy-
ing food, with all the pleasure and health
that food was meant to have? Doesn't 1t
sound as if you would like to eat it? Any
farmers family used to have barrels OF it
stored tor its own use in winter. Now
one cannot get gallon Of it for love or
money. These things are finer than the
finest preserves made with sugar, as they
have the high natural flavor unspoiled. In
orchard regions fruit growers complain
that the low prices hardly pay for picking
and barrelling green apples. In Central
New York, Virginia, and even in Massa-
chusetts. apples and pears 60 to decay by
ripening will not yield profit to the
gstherer. A Virginia correspondent writes
us of bushels of the finest plums going to
decay in every garden, because there is
literally no sale tor them at home. want
to say to all persons where fruit is plenty,
do not suffer a quart TO waste, but dry.
preserve, or pickle it all, and it will bring
treble the price of ripe fruit green. Ex-
pensive preserving with sugar is not
called for. The juice of fruits condensed
by long boiling, forms the richest. highly
favored syrups-the finest possible foun-
dation for beverages, and for preserving
other fruit cooked in it. Grape juice
makes a nectar beyond wine in this way.
Watermelon juice makes luscious syrup,
sweet as honey, and substitute for sugar
or cane syrup for family use. or preserv-
ing.
These things have been made for pri-
vate use. Grape syrup has been stand
by in my own family for years, and melon
syrup is we'll known in Southern homes.
Why should not people who are longing
for some way to make little money,
while their rich gardens are dropping fruit
around them, put money in their purses
and take the heavy care of preserving off
the shoulders of city housekeepers The
Women's Educational and Industrial I'm
ion, Boston, sold over nine thousand dol
lars'worth OF these homemade jellies and
sweetmeats last year, put up by private
women sent hundreds of their clear fig.
pineapple, persimmon and orange pre-
serves to the Mechanics Fair, at Boston,
last autumn, and it was one OF the most
tempting parts of the show.
Here is something from which women
can make money with more certainty than
from any pursuit open to them except
poultry raising. Country merchants will
do good thing for their trade by taking
homemade apple butter, cider apple sauce,
and preserves of all sorts, from private
hands for the city dealers. Look how the
trade in wild raspberry jam (such a staple
with bakers) and cider jelly has grown in
five years, and never fear but better things
will sell as WE'LL OF course it is a good
thing when city people can buy home made
preserves directly from the makers. Till
some better way is devised, if the women
who make good preserves for sale. and
the families who would like to be supplied,
will write me, shall be happy to put them
in communication with the nearest sources