JAMS.

Make sirup as directed above.  Use raspberries, strawberries, or any small fruit, and boil for half an hour.  Put up in small jars or tumblers; lay papers dipped in brandy on the fruit, and paste on covers, or use patent jelly-glasses.

MARMALADE.

Quinces make the best; but crab-apples or any sour apple are also good.  Poor quinces, unfit for other use, can be washed and cut in small pieces, coring, but not paring them.  Allow three-quarters of a pound of sugar and a teacupful of water to a pound of fruit, and boil slowly two hours, stirring and mashing it fine.  Strain through a colander, and put up in glasses or bowls.  Peach marmalade is made in the same way.

CURRANT JELLY.

The fruit must be picked when just ripened, as when too old it will not form jelly.  Look over, and then put stems and all in a porcelain-lined kettle.  Crush a little of the fruit to form juice, but add no water.  As it heats, jam with a potato-masher; and when hot through, strain through a jelly-bag.  Let all run off that will, before squeezing the bag.  It will be a little clearer than the squeezed juice.  To every pint of this juice add one pound of best white sugar, taking care that it has not a blue tinge.  Jelly from bluish-white sugars does not harden well.  Boil the juice twenty-five minutes; add the sugar, and boil for five more.  Put up in glasses.

ORANGE MARMALADE.

This recipe, taken from the “New York Evening Post,” has been thoroughly tested by the author, and found delicious.

“A recipe for orange marmalade that I think will be entirely new to most housewives, and that I know is delicious, comes from an English housekeeper.  It is a sweet that is choice and very healthful.  If made now, when oranges and lemons are plentiful, it may be had at a cost of from five to six cents for a large glass.  The recipe calls for one dozen oranges (sweet or part bitter), one half-dozen lemons, and ten pounds of granulated sugar.  Wash the fruit in tepid water thoroughly, and scrub the skins with a soft brush to get rid of the possible microbes that it is said may lurk on the skins of fruit.  Dry the fruit; take a very sharp knife, and on a hard-wood board slice it very thin.  Throw away the thick pieces that come off from the ends.  Save all the seeds, and put them in one bowl; the sliced fruit in another.  Pour half a gallon of water over the contents of each bowl, and soak for thirty-six hours.  Then put the fruit in your preserving-kettle, with the water that has been standing on it, and strain in (through a colander) the water put on the lemon-seeds.  Cook gently two hours; then add the sugar, and cook another hour, or until the mixture jellies.  Test by trying a little in a saucer.  Put away in glasses or cans, as other jelly.”