=Salt Fish=: Keep salt fish, whether dry or in brine, well away from all else. A good place for them is a big box with a tight cover, the cracks filled inside with putty and covered outside with paper. Put a shelf across for boxes and cartons; stand kits on the floor. Hinge on the top as a door, and fasten with hook and staple. Set the box on short legs, else put bricks under the corners.
=Things in Glass=: Glass jars, whether of preserves, fruit, or vegetables, had better be wrapped in paper, held on by a rubber band, and set so as not to touch. They should be kept where it is dark, dry, clean, and cool, on slat shelves or plank ones bored full of half-inch holes. Light, through its weird actinic rays, plays hob with flavors, and may even induce worse things. Yet jellies set in full sunlight for, say, ten days gain a richer texture and keep better ever after.
=Fruit and Vegetable Storage=: With a cool, dry, airy cellar have movable bins of slats with firm, low legs, whitewashed yearly inside and out. Store in them apples, potatoes, sweet and Irish, turnips, carrots, beets, what not. Lay grapes, choosing perfect bunches only, upon swinging slat shelves and cover with cheese cloth. In a temperature around forty degrees there will be no rotting nor drying up, provided only sound things have been brought in.
=Canning Things=: The secret of success in canning things is perfect sterilization. Do the work if possible in bright, windy weather, out doors if you can; if not, in a kitchen very clean and well aired. Bring into it no specked or rotten things—decay is a ferment the same as yeast, and spores of it spread through the air. It is better to prepare things outside. Drop apples, pears, or peaches in water as pared or hulled, and keep them covered until ready to cook. Have two kettles of syrup, one bubbling, the other barely simmering. Have a boiler of boiling water for the jars. Empty a jar just at the moment of using, fill it running over with boiling-hot fruit and seal instantly. The simmering-kettle is for filling up the other. Keep the bubbling-kettle filled with syrup to capacity, drop in barely fruit enough to fill a jar, cook for five minutes, then seal. A few cloves and a blade of mace in the top of each can improve flavor. Use at least half weight of sugar to fruit—three-fifths is better. Invert after sealing and screw tops harder when cool. If a can leaks, empty it, reheat, fill, and seal securely. Set hot jars away from draughts until cool. Remember, though, the fruit which comes out of your cans will be just as good and no better than what went into them. Therefore spend your time and strength only on good fruit, ripe, but not over-ripe.