PRESERVED CUCUMBERS.

Your cucumbers should be well shaped, and all of the same size. Spread
the bottom and sides of a preserving kettle with a thick layer of vine
leaves. Then put in the cucumbers—with a little alum broken small.
Cover them thickly with vine leaves, and then with a dish. Fill up the
kettle with water, and let them hang over a slow fire till nest
morning, but do not allow the water to boil. Next day, take them out,
cool them, and repeat the process with fresh vine leaves, till the
cucumbers are a fine green. When cold drain them, cut a small piece out
of the flat side, and extract the seeds. Wipe the cucumbers in a dry
cloth, and season the inside with a mixture of bruised mace and grated
lemon-peel. Tie on with a packthread the bit that was cut out.

Weigh them, and to every pound of cucumbers allow a pound of
loaf-sugar. Put the sugar into a preserving kettle, a half pint of
water to each pound, and. the beaten white of an egg to every four
pounds. Boil and skim the sugar till quite clear, adding sliced ginger
and lemon parings to your taste. When cool, pour it over the cucumbers,
and let them lie in it two days, keeping them covered with a plate, and
a weight on it to press it down. Then boil up the syrup again, adding
one-half as much sugar, &c. as you had at first; and at the last the
juice and grated peel of two lemons for every six cucumbers. The lemon
must boil in the syrup but ten minutes. Then strain the syrup all over
the cucumbers, and put them up in glass jars.

If they are not quite clear, boil them in a third syrup.

Small green melons may be preserved in this manner.