Of the quality of eggs you can always judge correctly by looking at them toward the light: if they are translucent they are good; if they look dark they are old—or you may get a chicken, when you only paid for an egg.
Many methods for preserving eggs are recommended. Packed away in fine salt they will keep, but, like salt meat, have not the same flavor as fresh. Set them on their small ends in a tight cask, and fill it with pure lime-water, and they will keep, but it changes their flavor. This, however, is a very common method. The best way known to us, is to pack fresh eggs down in Indian meal, allowing no two to touch each other. Keep very dry in a cool cellar, and they will remain for months unchanged.
ELDERBERRY.
This is a healthy berry, dried and used for making pies, especially mixed with some other fruit. The blossoms are much used as medicine for small children. The common sweet elder is the only kind cultivated. The earlier red are offensive and poisonous. They are easily grown on rough waste land, or in any situation you prefer. Of this berry is made a wine, superior in flavor and effect to any port wine now to be obtained in market; it has had the preference among the best judges in the country;—it is fast coming into notice and cultivation. The wine is so entirely superior to the poisonous substances of that name in commerce, that it would be well for every neighborhood to make enough for their sick. The process is sure and easily intelligible to all. (See article Wine.)
ENDIVE.
This is a well-known winter-lettuce. Sow from July to September, according to latitude. It should come into maturity at the time of the first smart frosts. To get beautiful, white, tender bunches, they should be tied up when the leaves are about six inches long. When frost comes, protect by covering. In very cold climates, place it in the cellar, with the roots in moist earth, and it will keep for a long time. It will not be extensively used in this country for soups and stews, as it is in Europe; and but few of the American people care much about winter-lettuce. This is the best variety of lettuce, except for those who have hot-houses and attend to winter-gardening. They will prefer the other finer varieties. There are two varieties of endive cultivated in this country: green curled, which is the most common, and used principally as a salad; the broad-leaved, or Batavian, has thicker leaves and large heads, and is principally used in stews and soups. Still another variety, called succory, which is used to some extent in Europe as a winter-salad, but is cultivated mainly for the root. It is dried and ground to mix with coffee: some consider it quite as good. This is more cultivated at the South than at the North—their winters are much better adapted to it. The medicinal virtues of this plant are nearly equal to those of the dandelion. When it is bleached, by tying or earthing up, the bitterness is removed, and the taste is pleasant; this must be done when the plants are dry, or they will rot. Plant them in a sunny place and in a light soil.
FEEDING ANIMALS.
Feed as nearly as possible at the same hours. All creatures do much better for being so fed. Do not feed domestic animals too much: animals will be more healthy, grow faster, and fatten better, by being fed almost, but not quite as much as they will eat. Giving food to lie by them is poor economy; always let them eat it all up, and desire a little more;—at the same time, let it be remembered that creatures kept very poorly for a considerable time, especially while young, will never fully recover from it. This is often done under the idea of keeping them cheap, but it is dear keeping. They never can make as fine animals afterward.
All grains and vegetables, except beets and turnips, are better for being boiled or steamed. The increased value is much more than the cost of cooking, provided persons are not so careless as to allow food to be injured by standing after cooking. Cooking is supposed to add one fourth to the value of food. Grinding dry grains adds nearly as much to their value, as feed for animals, as cooking. If you neither grind nor boil hard grain for feed, it will pay well to soak it somewhat soft before feeding. Variety of food is as pleasant and healthy for animals as for men.