The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-08-21
How to Can Fruit.

Canning was a great success over the
sweet preserving, but we want to inn
prove on canning. The stores for win
ter can be put up in larger packages,
by the gallon instead of quart, and so
condensed as to stand the chance of
defective sealing. The last improve
ment is stoneware cans or pots, self
sealing, which bear low temperature
and keep the fruit from the light.
Carefully dried fruit is better than the
common canned stuff, but there must
be intelligent handling. Firm, fine
fruit only should be used for drying or
preserving whole, and it should be
picked, pared and in the can in the
shortest possible time from the branch.
How much this secures of flavor and
keeping fruit-growers have yet to learn.
/ am out of conceit with glass cans,
which do for tomatoes and green apple
sauce. By chance | saw one of the
quaint, little, straight earthen jars sent
out with Vienna yeast, holding little
less than a quart, and, always on the
watch for Housekeeping ware, nothing
would do till hunted up the yeast com
pany and had some dozens of the con-
venient cans in possession. They cost
three cents a piece Ly the dozen, and
keep jelly, jams and marmalade better
than anything else. a waxed cloth tied
on is all the cover needed, or a paper
glazed with white of egg, shellac or
isinglass. Don't dry berries as advised
by the fruit evaporators. They are all
juice and seeds. Make jam of them,
raspberries, blackberries, mulberries,
quarter of their weight in sugar sprink-
led over them in shallow preserving
pan, boiled fast, fifteen minutes at
most, and stirred with a small wooden
hoe, which scrapes the jam from the
pan and prevents burning. To save
early mellow apples, core, quarter and
cut out every speck without peeling,
boil in cider, just drawn if possible, in
a close-covered stone pot, very quickly,
without sugar, and seal hot in glass
cans. The peel gives flavor, and is
easily strained when the pulp is used.
If you want flavor in green apple sauce
or jelly, always cook the parings
cheese-cloth by themselves. Never add
water to fruit or sugar for fruit if its
own juice can be had Sweet apples
and mellow, dead ripe pears, baked
down in mild oven till they are iellied
in their own juice and sugar, make
sweetmeat that will keep with less care
than anything else, and satisfy every
taste. Line the bottom and sides of
your stove oven with common bricks,
laid in loosely; set the fruit in close
stone jars, and let it cook all day and
night. No fear of burning, but the
steady, moderate heat turns out lucid,
deep-havOred mass which is something
what food ought to be. Boil jam fast;
let this preserve take its time and don't
stir it, 1t is an insult to a pear to pre-
serve it any other way. The delicate
looking canned pears are very insipid
eating beside it. There are just three
ways of preserving apples; in cans for
pies, in cider apple sauce, and as apple
butter. Dry them in quarters or
eighths, but don't bleach them. 1t
takes away their flavor and brings the
doctors down on you. The peach is
the fruit preserving. Dried quickly
with the skins on, they are better than
half the canned stuff, if they are prop
erly cooked in sugar till clear and
syrupy. A high-havored white peach
in sugar syrup, almost too thick to
serve, was the standard company pre-
serve in the Wabash region where | be-
gan to g take notice" This was made
by cooking the peach clear in syrup
made with pound for pound of sugar,
and then boiling the syrup down after
the fruit was taken out. The sweet
juice from the cracked stones of the
peaches added flavor, and that is the
kind of preserve some people remem-
Der to the end of life. A delectable
fruit confection is made of the fairest,
ripest peaches, pared into a syrup of
half their weight in sugar, mostened
with peach juice, boiled clear, drained,
and the syrup with as much more sugar
boiled almost till it candies. The
peaches, split and stoned, lie in this
syrup all night, then drain and place on
sheets of glass in a mild oven to dry.
Peaches dried this way are worth fifty
cents pound. When peaches are below
paying price every grower should turn
the crop into syrup or peach butter.
A smooth wooden fruit press ought to
be on every farm, as much as a grind
stone. The fruit cut open and stoned
is ground, the pOmace pressed from
skins, and then either drained or the
juice boiled down like sorghum, or the
pulp stewed into butter. Large stone
ware evapOrating pans, costing SO to So,
are desirable where quantities of fruit
are to be made up, but milk crooks will
do the work. Thick stoneware is very
much better than porcelain-lined iron,
giving a milder, steadier heat, with less
danger of scorching. -Four gallons of
peach juice, clear, without any sugar,
will make gallon Of syrup finer than
any cane syrup. Damsons and plums
are delightful for preserves, relshing
longer than sweeter fruits. Plum cider
from dead-ripe fruit is finer than any
beverage known except grape juice.
If any one wishes to try it, wooden
lemon-squeezer will extract the juice
from small quantity. An easy way OF
keeping plums in the frm-feshed stage
is to cut the stones out, drain on cheese
cloth and pack in dry sugar; two-inch
layer in the jar, then one layer OF
plums, well covered an inch deep in
sugar, plums again, and so on till the
lar is full the ton heinz smear COve,