387. How To Keep Eggs Several Months

It is a good plan to buy eggs for family use when cheap, and preserve them in the following manner: Mix half a pint of unslaked lime with the same quantity of salt, a couple of gallons of water. The water should be turned on boiling hot. When cold, put in the eggs, which should be perfectly fresh, and care should be taken not to crack any of them - if cracked, they will spoil directly. The eggs should be entirely covered with the lime-water, and kept in a stone pot, and the pot set in a cool place. If the above directions are strictly attended to, the eggs will keep good five months. The lime-water should not be so strong as to eat the shell, and all the eggs should be perfectly fresh when put in, as one bad one will spoil the whole.

388. How To Melt Fat For Shortening

The fat of all kinds of meat, excepting that of ham and mutton, makes good shortening. Roast meat drippings, and the liquor in which meat is boiled, should stand until cold, to have the fat congeal, so that it can be taken off easily. When taken up, scrape off the sedi ment which adheres to the under side of the fat, cut the fat into small pieces, together with any scraps of fat from broiled meat that you may happen to have. Melt the fat slowly, then strain it, and let it remain till cold. When formed into a hard cake, take it up - if any sediment adheres to the under side, scrape it off. Melt the fat again - when partly cooled, sprinkle in salt, in the proportion of a tea-spoonful to a pound of the shortening. The dregs of the fat are good for soap grease. This shortening answers all the various purposes of lard very well, excepting in the hottest weather. The fat of cooked meat should not be suffered to remain more than a week in winter, and three days in summer, without being melted. Ham fat, if boiled in fresh water, and then clarified, answers very well to fry in. Mutton fat, if melted into hard cakes, will fetch a good price at the tallow-chandler's. The leaves, and thin pieces of pork, should be used for lard. Cut them in small bits, and melt them slowly; then strain them through a cullender, with a thick cloth laid in it. As soon as the fat cools and thickens, sprinkle in salt, in the proportion of a tea-cup full to twenty weight of the lard. Stir it in well, then set the pot that contains it in a cool place. Some people have an idea that the pork scraps must be on the fire until they become brown, in order to have the lard kept sweet the year round, but it is not necessary, if salt is mixed with it.

389. How To Keep Vegetables Through The Winter

Succulent vegetables are preserved best in a cool, shady place, that is damp. Turnips, Irish potatoes, and similar vegetables, should be protected from the air and frost by being buried up in sand, and in very severe cold weather covered over with a linen cloth. It is - said that the dust of charcoal, sprinkled over potatoes, will keep them from sprouting. I have also heard it said, that Carolina potatoes may be kept a number of months, if treated in the following manner: Take those that are large, and perfectly free from decay - pack them in boxes of dry sand, and set the boxes in a place exposed to the influence of smoke, and inaccessible to frost.

390. How To Preserve Herbs

All kinds of herbs should be gathered on a dry day, just before, or while in blossom. Tie them in bundles, and suspend them in a dry, airy place, with the blossoms down wards. When perfectly dry, wrap the medicinal ones in paper, and keep them from the air. Pick off the leaves of those which are to be used in cooking, pound and sift them fine, and keep the powder in bottles, corked up tight.

391. How To Preserve Various Kinds Of Fruit Through The Winter

Apples can bo kept till June, by taking only those that are hard and sound, wiping them dry, then packing them in tight barrels, with a layer of bran to each layer of apples. Envelope the barrel in a linen cloth, to protect it from frost, and keep it in a cool place, but not so cold as to freeze the apples. It is said that mortar, laid over the top of a barrel of ap-piee, is a good thing to preserve them, as it draws the air from them, which is the princi pal cause of their decaying. Care should be taken not to have it come in contact with the apples. To preserve oranges and lemons several months, take those that are perfectly fresh, and wrap each one in soft paper: put them in glass jars, or a very tight box. with white sand, that has been previously dried in an oven a few hours, after it has been baked in. The sand should be strewed thick over each one of the oranges, as they are laid in the jar, and the whole covered with a thick layer of it. Close the jar up tight, and keep it in a cool dry place, but not so cool as to freeze the fruit. To preserve grapes, gather them on a dry day, when they are not quite dead ripe, and pick those that are not fair off from the stems. Lay the bunches of grapes in a glass jar, and sprinkle around each of them a thick layer of dry bran, so that they will not touch each other. Have a thick layer of bran on the top, and cork and seal the jar very tight, so that the air may be entirely excluded. Whenever they are to be eaten, restore them to their freshness by cutting off a small piece from the end of the stalks, and immerse the stalks of each bunch in sweet wine tor a few minutes. The stalks will imbibe the wine, and make the grapes fresh and juicy. Various kinds of fruit, taken when green, such as grapes, gooseberries, currants, and plums, can be kept through the winter, by being treated in the following manner: Fill junk bottles with them, and Bet them in an oven six or seven hours, after having baked in it. Let them remain till they begin to shrink, then take the fruit from one bottle to fill the others quite full. Cork and seal up the bottles. Whenever you wish to make pies of them, put the quantity you wish to use into a tin pan, turn on boiling water sufficient to cover them, and stew them in it till soft, then sweeten and make them into pies. Ripe blackberries and whortleberries, to be kept long, should be dried perfectly in the sun, then tied up in bags that are thick enough to exclude the air. When used for pies, treat them in the same manner as the green fruit. Ripe currants, dried on the stalks, then picked off, and put in bags, will keep nice for pies during the winter. They also make a fine tea for persons that have a fever, particularly the hectic fever - it is also an excellent thing to counteract the effects of opium.