Vermont Pickles (Cucumbers).
The first day make a brine strong enough to bear an egg, and pour boiling hot on the pickles; cover and let them stand twenty-four hours. The second day drain from the brine and make alum water boiling hot to cover them well, allowing a piece of alum the size of an egg to every hundred pickles. Cover tightly again for twenty-four hours. The third day drain from the alum water and cover with boiling hot vinegar, in which let them stand for one week. Then heat your vinegar boiling hot again, and add the following spices, etc., to every hundred: 1 tablespoonful cloves, 1 of coriander seed, 1 of ginger root, 2 of cinnamon, 2 of celery seed, 2 of mustard seed, 2 of whole pepper seed, 1 cup sugar, 1 of horse radish root, sliced fine. Put a layer of oak leaves in the bottom of your firkin, or jar, then a layer of pickles and spices, then leaves again, and so on until full, covering the top with the leaves, and pouring the boiling vinegar over all. They will be ready to use in two weeks, and will keep two years. The oak leaves are very essential for their astringent qualities.