was kept near, to add to the apple butter as the cider boiled away.  If cooked slowly, a whole day or longer will be consumed in cooking.  When the apple butter had almost finished cooking, about the last hour, sweeten to taste with sugar (brown sugar was frequently used).  Spices destroy the true apple flavor, although Aunt Sarah used sassafras root, dug from the near-by woods, for flavoring her apple butter, and it was unexcelled.  The apple butter, when cooked sufficiently, should be a dark rich color, and thick like marmalade, and the cider should not separate from it when a small quantity is tested on a saucer.  An old recipe at the farm called for 32 gallons of cider to 8 buckets of cider apples, and to 40 gallons of apple butter 50 pounds of sugar were used.  Pour the apple butter in small crocks used for this purpose.  Cover the top of crocks with paper, place in dry, cool store-room, and the apple butter will keep several years.  In olden times sweet apples were used for apple butter, boiled in sweet cider, then no sugar was necessary.  Small brown, earthen pots were used to keep this apple butter in, it being only necessary to tie paper over the top.  Dozens of these pots, filled with apple butter, might have been seen in Aunt Sarah’s store-room at the farm at one time.

CANNED TOMATOES

When canning red tomatoes select those which ripen early in the season, as those which ripen later are usually not as sweet.  Wash the tomatoes, pour scalding water over, allow them to stand a short time, when skins may be easily removed.  Cut tomatoes in several pieces, place over fire in porcelain-lined preserving kettle and cook about 25 minutes, or until an orange-colored scum rises to the top.  Fill perfectly clean sterilised jars with the hot tomatoes fill quickly before they cool.  Place rubber and top on jar, and when jars have become perfectly cold (although they may, apparently, have been perfectly air-tight), the tops should be given another turn before standing away for the Winter; failing to do this has frequently been the cause of inexperienced housewives’ ill success when canning tomatoes.  Also run the dull edge of a knife blade carefully around the top of jar, pressing down the outer edge and causing it to fit more closely.  Aunt Sarah seldom lost a jar of canned tomatoes, and they were as fine flavored as if freshly picked from the vines.  She was very particular about using only new tops and rubbers for her jars when canning tomatoes.  If the wise housewife takes these precautions, her canned tomatoes should keep indefinitely.  Aunt Sarah allowed her jars of tomatoes to stand until the day following that on which the tomatoes were canned, to be positively sure they were cold, before giving the tops a final turn.  Stand away in a dark closet.

EUCHERED PEACHES

Twelve pounds of pared peaches (do not remove pits), 6 pounds of sugar and 1 gill of vinegar boiled together a few minutes, drop peaches into this syrup and cook until heated through, when place peaches in air-tight jars, pour hot syrup over and seal.