Damsons, Bottled.--Fill the bottles with damsons, and add to each bottle ½ lb. castor sugar. Put the bottles in cold water in a large pan on the fire, where they must remain for ½ hour after they have begun to boil. When boiled, let them cool, cork down tight, and tie bladder over the corks, and keep in a very dry place. Care should be taken that no bruised fruits are put in. Whilst the bottles are on the fire, hay should be put between them to keep them from breaking. Figs.--Weigh the fruit, and have an equal quantity of sugar, the peel of 1 large lemon, and a little ginger. Lay the figs in cold water for 24 hours, then simmer them till tender; put them again into cold water, and let them remain for 2 days, changing the water every day. If not quite soft simmer again, and replace in cold water until next day. Take their weight in loaf sugar, and with ⅔ of it make a syrup, in which simmer the figs for 10 minutes. In 2 days take the third of the sugar, pounded fine, and pour the syrup from the figs on it. Make a rich syrup with the peel of the lemon and a little raw ginger, and boil the figs in it, then mix all together and put into large jam pots. The figs may be cut in half, if preferred, after they have simmered until soft. Ginger, Preserved.--Put the ginger for 2 weeks every night and morning into boiling water. Take off the outside skin with a sharp knife. Boil the ginger in water till quite tender; slice it. Prepare a syrup of 1 lb. sugar to ½ pint water. Clarify it, and put the ginger in it. Boil it till clear. Leave it to cool before putting it into jars. Gooseberries, Bottled.--Pick off the soft brown outside part at the top of each gooseberry, but be most particular to leave the hair-like fibre which it surrounds; cut the stem close, and if any one gooseberry breaks open reject it, as a single broken one might spoil a whole bottleful. Put them into wide-mouthed bottles (pickle bottles suit very well), fill them up with cold water, and place them standing in a fish-kettle or any large, flat-bottomed pot; also filled with water as high as the necks of the bottles, over a very slow fire, where they are to remain until they come to a gentle boil and begin to change colour; then take them out of the pot, and let them stand until they become cold, when the bottles are to be filled up with olive oil, and they need not be corked. Look at them from time to time, and fill up with fresh oil, as some may evaporate. Keep the bottles on a shelf in a dry place, for damp spoils them, and when wanted for use, have them washed in water and soda by putting them into a colander, and then a shower of fresh water at the end, just to take off any soda which might remain. Gooseberry Jam.--(_a_) Allow ¾ lb. lump or white crystallised sugar to each lb. gooseberries; a few spoonfuls of water must be put at the bottom of the preserving pan and care taken that the fruit does not burn. Pot ½ hour after the jam boils; keep it well stirred.