A kettle should be kept on purpose. Brass, if very bright, will do. If acid fruit is preserved in a brass kettle which is not bright, it becomes poisonous. Bell-metal is better than brass, and the iron ware lined with porcelain, best of all.

The chief art in making nice preserves, and such as will keep, consists in the proper preparation of the syrup, and in boiling them just long enough. English housekeepers think it necessary to do them very slowly, and they boil their sweetmeats almost all day, in a jar set into a kettle of water. Brown sugar should be clarified. The crushed and granulated sugars are usually so pure as not to require being clarified. Loaf sugar is the best of any. Clean brown sugar makes very good sweatmeats for family use; but the best of sugar is, for most fruits, necessary, to make such as will be elegant, and keep long.

Sweetmeats should be boiled very gently lest the syrup should burn, and also that the fruit may become thoroughly penetrated with the sugar. Furious boiling breaks small and tender fruits. Too long boiling makes sweetmeats dark, and some kinds are rendered hard and tough.

Preserves keep best in glass jars, which have also this advantage, that you can see whether or not fermentation has commenced, without opening them. If stone jars are used, those with narrow mouths are best, as the air is most easily excluded from them; and small sized ones, containing only enough for once or twice, are best, as the frequent opening of a large jar, injures its entire contents, by the repeated admission of the air. When sweetmeats are cold, cover them close, and if not to be used soon, paste a paper over the top, and with a feather, brush over the paper with white of egg. When you have occasion to open them, if a thick, leather-looking mould covers them, they are in a good state, as nothing so effectually shuts out the air; but if they are specked here and there with mould, taste them, and if they are injured, it should be carefully removed, and the jar set into a kettle of water (not hot at first, lest the it should crack) and boiled. If the taste shows them to be uninjured, this mould may be the beginning of a leather-mould; therefore wait a few days, and look at them again, and scald them if necessary. A very good way of scalding them, and perhaps the easiest, is to put the jar (if it is of stone ware) into a brick oven as soon as the bread is drawn, and let it stand three or four hours. If the oven is quite warm a shorter time will do. This, or setting the jar into a kettle of water, as mentioned above, is much better than to scald them in the ordinary way, as they are exposed to the air when poured into the preserving kettle, and also when returned to the jar.

In making jellies, the sugar should be heated and should not be added, until the fruit-juice boils; and for this reason, - that the process is completed in much less time than if they are put together cold. Thus the diminution of the quantity, which long boiling occasions, is avoided, and the color of the jelly is much finer. Sometimes ladies complain that, for some inexplicable reason, they cannot make their currant jelly harden. The true reason was doubtless this, - that while making it, it was suffered to stop boiling for a few minutes. Let it boil gently but steadily, until by taking a little of it into a cold silver spoon, you perceive that it quickly hardens around the edges. A practised eye will readily judge by the movement of the liquid as it boils. Put jelly in little jars, cups, or tumblers; when it is cold, paste paper over the top and brush it over with white of egg. When this is used, the old method of putting brandy papers upon jelly is unnecessary. Particular attention is requested to these suggestions in regard to making jellies.

How To Make Syrup For Preserves

Put a large teacup of water for every pound of sugar. As it • begins to heat, stir it often. When it rises towards the top of the kettle, put in a cup of water; repeat this process two or three times, then set the kettle aside. If the sugar is perfectly pure, there will be no scum on the top. If there is scum, after it has stood a few minutes, take it off carefully. If the syrup then looks clear, it is not necessary to strain it.

To clarify sugar, put into every two pounds a beaten white of an egg. Five whites will do for a dozen pounds. Proportion the sugar and water as directed above, and after it has boiled enough take it from the fire, and let it stand ten minutes, then take the scum very carefully from the top, and pour off the syrup so gently as not to disturb the sediment. Have the kettle washed, return the syrup, and add the fruit. Some persons always strain the syrup through a flannel bag, but if the above directions are observed, it is not necessary. To use a flannel bag, always wring it very dry in hot water. This prevents a waste of the article strained. The bag should be soft, and not fulled up.