Pineapple done in this way is a beautiful and delicious preserve.  The usual manner of preserving it by putting it into the syrup without first boiling it, makes it little better than sweetened leather.

TO PRESERVE WATERMELON RIND AND CITRON.

Pare off the green skin, cut the watermelon rind into pieces.  Weigh the pieces and allow to each pound a pound and a half of loaf sugar.  Line your kettle with green vine-leaves, and put in the pieces without the sugar.  A layer of vine-leaves must cover each layer of melon rind.  Pour in water to cover the whole and place a thick cloth over the kettle.  Simmer the fruit for two hours, after scattering a few bits of alum amongst it.  Spread the melon rind on a dish to cool.  Melt the sugar, using a pint of water to a pound and a half of sugar, and mix with it some beaten white of egg.  Boil and skim the sugar.  When quite clear, put in the rind and let it boil two hours; take out the rind, boil the syrup again, pour it over the rind, and let it remain all night.  The next morning, boil the syrup with lemon juice, allowing one lemon to a quart of syrup.  When it is thick enough to hang in a drop from the point of a spoon, it is done.  Put the rind in jars and pour over it the syrup.  It is not fit for use immediately.

Citrons may be preserved in the same manner, first paring off the outer skin and cutting them into quarters.  Also green limes.

TO PRESERVE AND DRY GREENGAGES.

To every pound of sugar allow one pound of fruit, one quarter pint of water.

For this purpose, the fruit must be used before it is quite ripe and part of the stalk must be left on.  Weigh the fruit, rejecting all that is in the least degree blemished, and put it into a lined saucepan with the sugar and water, which should have been previously boiled together to a rich syrup.  Boil the fruit in this for ten minutes, remove it from the fire, and drain the greengages.  The next day boil up the syrup and put in the fruit again, let it simmer for three minutes, and drain the syrup away.  Continue this process for five or six days, and the last time place the greengages, when drained, on a hair-sieve, and put them in an oven or warm spot to dry; keep them in a box, with paper between each layer, in a place free from damp.

PRESERVED PUMPKINS.

To each pound of pumpkin allow one pound of roughly pounded loaf sugar, one gill of lemon juice.

Obtain a good, sweet pumpkin; halve it, take out the seeds and pare off the rind; cut it into neat slices.  Weigh the pumpkin, put the slices in a pan or deep dish in layers, with the sugar sprinkled between them; pour the lemon juice over the top, and let the whole remain for two or three days.  Boil all together, adding half a pint of water to every three pounds of sugar used until the pumpkin becomes tender; then turn the whole into a pan, where let it remain for a week; then drain off the syrup, boil it until it is quite thick, skim, and pour it boiling over the pumpkin.  A little bruised ginger and lemon rind, thinly pared, may be boiled in the syrup to flavor the pumpkin.