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Wine-Sour Plums, to Preserve, Excellent

Pick off the stalks, weigh the plums, and take half their weight in loaf sugar pounded. Tear the skin at the seam with a pin, and put the fruit and the sugar, in alternate layers, into a large earthen jar. Cover the jar closely, and put it in the oven in a shallow tin of boiling water. Keep the water boiling under it. When the plums are soft, pour the syrup from them; boil it, pour it over the fruit, and leave them till cold. Do this several times until the skin looks hard and the plums clear. Let them stand a week, then take them up one by one with a spoon and put them into jars. Boil the syrup once more, and pour it over them. If there is not sufficient syrup to cover them, add more to it, made in the proportion of a pound of sugar to a tea-cupful of water. When the plums are cold, place brandied papers upon them, and tie a bladder over, to keep them airtight; otherwise, they will lose their colour. If stored in a cool dry place, plums thus preserved will keep for years. Time, about ten days. Wine-sours are plums peculiar to the North of England.