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Matters Preliminary

ON account of the quite prevalent use of power vehicles, life in the country, for at least part of the year, is being made possible and agreeable to a larger and larger number of families. As a sequence of this return to the country, gardening and the cultivation of berries and small fruits has had a renaissance.

Having grown a goodly supply of berries, fruit, and vegetables, what more natural than a desire to preserve some of this abundance for an occasion when such products are not available? Thus now, as never before, is the provident housekeeper interested in the processes by which the excess of fresh fruit and vegetables of the summer may be kept for winter use.

Our mothers and grandmothers dried berries, fruit, squash, and pumpkin; they also preserved fruit in sugar syrup, pound for pound, made fruit jellies and jams, and kept cucumbers, cabbage, and peppers either in salt or vinegar.

All these things are done to-day, to a certain extent, but in addition, many vegetables and fruit are kept in such a manner that the original fresh taste is in large measure retained, and at practically no expense save the cost of jars, the fuel, and the time spent in the work.