Every one of us, probably, fills more than one little stocking, on Christmas night, with candied fruit. If we belong to the "first families," and wish to do the thing handsomely, this fruit has cost from seventy-five cents to a dollar a pound; we knowing, all the while, that better could be produced for half or two-thirds the money. Last year, I purchased one pound of the candy, and examined it with practical reference to this question. Plums, peaches, cherries, apples, and pears, all tasted alike, and had evidently been boiled in the same sirup. Apple and quince marmalades alone had any flavor. Now, our farmers' daughters could cook these fruits so as to preserve their flavor, could candy them and pack them into boxes, quite as well as the French _men_; and so a new and important domestic industry might arise. The experiment would be largely profitable as soon as all risk of mistake were over; and perishable fruit at a distance from market could be used in this way. A few years ago, we had a rare conserve from Constantinople and Smyrna, called fig-paste. Now we have a mixture of gum Arabic and flour, flavored with essences; made for the most part at Westboro', and called by the same name. Yes, we actually have fig-paste, spicy with wintergreen and black-birch! Now, what is to prevent our farmers' daughters from making this?--from putting up fruits in air-tight cans, and drying a great many kinds of vegetables that cannot be had now for love or money? Who can get Lima beans or dried sweet-corn, that does not dry them from his own garden? Do not let our medical friends feel too indignant if I recommend to these same women the manufacture of pickles. The use of pickles, like the use of wine, may be a questionable thing; but, like liquors, they are a large article of trade: and, if we must have them, why not have them made of wholesome fruit, in good cider-vinegar, with a touch of the grandmotherly seasoning that we all remember, rather than of stinted gherkins, soured by vitriol and greened by copper? There are many sweet sauces, too,--made of fruit, stewed with vinegar, spice, and sugar,--which cannot be obtained in shops, and would meet a good market. How easy the whole matter is, may be guessed from this fact, that, sitting once at a Southern table,--the table of a genial grand-nephew of George Washington, who bore his name,--I was offered twenty-five kinds of candied fruit, all made by the delicate hands of his wife; and seven varieties in form and flavor, from the common tomato.