Gather them in early summer, when they are full-grown, but so tender that a large needle will easily pierce them all through. Rub off the outer skin with a coarse cloth, and then lay them in salt and water for a week, changing the brine every other day. Allow for this brine a small quarter of a pound of salt to a large quart of water. Make enough to cover all the nuts well. Place a large lid over the pan, and keep them closely from the air. The last day take them out of the brine, drain them, and prick every one quite through in several places with a large needle. Drain them again, spread them out on large flat dishes, and set them to blacken for two days in the hot sun. For a hundred nuts, allow a gallon of excellent cider vinegar, half an ounce of black pepper-corns, half an ounce of cloves, half an ounce of allspice, an ounce of root ginger, and an ounce of mace. Boil the spice in the vinegar for ten minutes, tied up in eight small muslin bags. Then take them out, and having divided the nuts in four stone jars, distribute among them, equally, the bags of spice, and pour on the vinegar hot, an equal portion in each jar. While warm, secure them with flat corks, and tie leather over them. Done this way, you may begin to use them in a week. If you have not enough of vinegar to fill the jars up to the top, add some cold, and strew among the nuts some blades of mace. Finish with a large spoonful of salad oil at the top of each jar.

Pickled Plums

Take large fine plums; perfect, and quite ripe. To every quart of plums allow half a pound of the best white sugar powdered, and a large pint of the best cider vinegar. Melt the sugar in the vinegar, and put it with the fruit into a porcelain kettle; all the plums having been previously pricked to the stone with a large needle. Lay among them some small muslin bags filled with broken nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon; and if you choose, a few cloves. Give them one boil up, skimming them well. Put them warm into stone jars, with the bags interspersed, and cork them immediately. Green gages may be done in this manner, first rendering them greener by boiling with vine leaves in the usual way.

Damsons Pickled. - Do these in the same manner as plums; but as they are much more acid, allow brown sugar of the best kind. Plums or damsons may be pickled plain, and with little trouble if full ripe, pricked with a needle, and packed down in a stone jar with profuse layers of brown sugar between the layers of fruit; the jars filled up with cold cider vinegar, and putting sweet oil at the top.

Pickled Cherries. - Take the largest and finest red cherries, fully ripe. Morellas are the best. Either remove the stems entirely, or cut them short, within two inches of the fruit. Have ready a large glass jar. Fill it two thirds with fresh newly-gathered cherries, and then fill up to the top with the best vinegar. Keep it well covered, and if both fruit and vinegar are of excellent quality, no boiling is necessary, and no spice, as the cherry flavor will be retained, and they will not shrivel.

Button Tomatos. - The small round tomatos, either red or yellow, will keep perfectly, if put whole into cold vinegar of the really best quality. You may add a bag of spice if you choose.

Nasturtion Seeds. - Keep a large glass jar of cold cider vinegar, and put in the green seeds of nasturtions after the flowers are off, and the seeds full-grown, but not hard. Remove the stalks. In this simple way nasturtions will keep perfectly well, and are an excellent substitute for capers with boiled mutton. They can be raised profusely, even in a city garden, and the blossoms are very beautiful. With pepper-grass and nastur-tion flowers from your own garden, you can have a nice salad for a summer evening tea-table.

The three pickles above (cherries, button tomatos, and nasturtion seeds,) are cheap, easy, and palatable. Try them. To flavor them with spice, boil the vinegar with a bag of spice in it, and pour it on hot, leaving the bag among them in the jar.