There is a general opinion that "canned goods" bought from a trustworthy grocer are at once as good and cheaper than those put up at home. This is a great mistake - quite as erroneous as the idea that baker's sponge cake is the same article as the golden, porous, home-made loaf, composed of pure sugar, fresh eggs, with no soda and no ammonia.

Much of the general prejudice against fruit and vegetables put up in cans is consequent upon the fact that many housewives know them only as the insipid products of factories that line the windows of the corner grocery. But even with this class there are brands and brands. Certain houses have a well-deserved reputation for putting on the market fruits carefully selected and preserved with a just regard to quality and flavor.

These goods, it may be remarked, are never cheap, although they may be well worth all the money asked for them. The housekeeper of moderate means considers them altogether too expensive for family use - perhaps

Too sweet and good

For human nature's daily food, especially when the boys and girls, with school-children's appetites, will consume the contents of a large can at one repast, and then, like the glutton of nursery rhyme, complain that they have not yet attained the end of their capacity in that line. The mother of such a flock is forced to content herself with what she can afford, although it be a second-rate article.

It does not occur to her that, unless her time has a specific market value, and her strength be rated according to the same standard, she may stock the pantries in the fruit season with what will vie with the finest brands offered by high-priced grocers.

To many people the very mention of canned goods is productive of a disgustful qualm - for have we not all been obliged to partake of them, or at least been expected to accept them, at summer hotels and boarding-houses, on steamboats, and railroad trains, where they furnish, day after day, the chief dessert ?

Peaches and apricots thus offered have the same faint, sickly sweetness, and can hardly be distinguished the one from the other, while berries are only recognizable among the larger fruits by their shape and seeds. The only use to which these apologies for the genuine article maybe put is to "doctor" them for pies and puddings, and even then they will be much improved by being boiled down and sweetened according to taste.

Before proceeding to the method of preparing the materials, let us consider the can question. Shall it be tin or glass ? If you ask my opinion I should say glass - decidedly. Of course they are more expensive in the beginning, but they are cheaper in the long run, for, if carefully used for half a dozen seasons, when the seventh summer approaches they are still there and ready to do service again. I do not think that I strain a point in saying that there is no place on this broad, green earth for old tin cans. In every community, from the tiny hut to the fashionable summer hotel, from the crowded tenement-house to the palatial brown-stone front, the tin can is the one indestructible piece of rubbish. The scavenger cart is loaded with them. In the country an occasional small boy uses an empty "tomayto can " for "worms for bait." But were there a small boy for every old tin can, the danger predicted by Malthus of over-population would be imminent.

There is a popular superstition to the effect that this blemish upon the fair face of nature is an article of diet for the omnivorous goat, but while we do not question his capacity to acquire adipose tissue from a frugal regimen of newspapers and old shoes, we doubt if even his digestive juices could extract nutriment from the tin can.

Let us, then, refuse to make use of the plebeian article, and fasten our faith to the quart and pint glass jars, always making sure that tops and rubbers are in good condition and laid ready to the hand, that they may be adjusted the very second the glasses are filled. Do not attempt to use the same rubbers year after year, but purchase new ones each season, that you may be sure they are firm and strong, and will preclude all air.

In canning there are certain principles which our housewife should bear in mind, and one of them is that the work must be undertaken when articles to be put up are at the height of the season in the part of the country in which she lives. The reasons for this are self-evident, as then the fruit is not forced, but has ripened naturally, and has not been bruised by transportation from the South, and, above all, is fresh. It is a great mistake to think of buying bruised or green peaches, apples, etc., for canning. They may be cooked, sweetened, and boiled down into marmalade or jellies, but for present purpose your fruit must be as carefully picked as if intended for eating from the hand.

The peeling of pears, apples, and peaches is an art in itself, and should be performed with a sharp knife. Handle lightly, not to bruise, and throw whole fruits into ice-water as soon as the skin is removed, and peaches when they are halved and the stones taken out. This serves to retain their original color and prevents the unsightly "browning" so often seen when this precaution is neglected.

Plums require no peeling, but they must be carefully selected, that no bruised ones are used.