Gather them when you can run a pin head into them, and after wiping them, keep them ten days in weak brine, changing it every other day. Then wipe them, and pour over boiling spiced vinegar. In four weeks they will be ready for use. It is a fine pickle.
A convenient Way to Pickle Cucumbers.
Put some spiced vinegar in a jar, with a little salt in it.
Every time you gather a mess, pour boiling vinegar on them, with a little alum in it. Then put them in the spiced vinegar. Keep the same vinegar for scalding all. When you have enough, take all from the spiced vinegar, and scald in the alum vinegar two or three minutes, till green, and then put them back in the spiced vinegar.
Indiana Pickles.
Take green tomatoes, and slice them. Put them in a basket to drain in layers, with salt scattered over them, say a tea-cup full to each gallon. Next day, slice one quarter the quantity of onions, and lay the onions and tomatoes in alternate layers in a jar, with spices intervening. Then fill the jar with cold vinegar. Tomatoes picked as they ripen, and just thrown into cold spiced vinegar, are a fine pickle, and made with very little trouble.
To Pickle Cauliflower, or Brocoli.
Keep them twenty-four hours in strong brine, and then take them out and heat the brine, and pour it on scalding hot, and let them stand till next day. Drain them, and throw them into spiced vinegar.