you may
perceive by the greenness of your Plums, and thickness of your syrup,
which if they be boiled enough, will gelly when it is cold; then take up
your Plums, and put them into a Gallipot, but boil your Syrup a little
longer, then strain it into some vessel, and being blood-warm, pour it
upon your plums, but stop not the pot before they be cold. Note also you
must preserve them in such a pan, as they may lye one by another, and
turn of themselves; and when they have been five or six days in the
syrup, that the syrup grow thin, you may boil it again with a little
Sugar, but put it not to your Plums till they be cold. They must have
three scaldings, and one boiling.

_To dry Plums._

Take three quarters of a pound of Sugar to a pound of black Pear-plums,
or Damsins, slit the Plums in the crest, lay a lay of Sugar with a lay
of Plums, and let them stand all night; if you stone the Plums, fill up
the place with sugar, then boil them gently till they be very tender,
without breaking the skins, take them into an earthen or silver dish,
and boil your syrup afterwards for a gelly, then pour it on your Plums
scalding hot, and let them stand two or three dayes, then let them be
put to the Oven after you draw your bread, so often untill your syrup be
dryed up, and when you think they are almost dry, lay them in a sieve,
and pour some scalding water on them, which will run through the sieve,
and set them in an Oven afterwards to dry.

_To preserve Cherries the best way, bigger than they grow naturally,
&c._

Take a pound of the smallest Cherries, and boil them tender in a pint of
fair water, then strain the liquor from the substance, then take two
pound of good Cherries, and put them into a preserving-pan with a lay of
Cherries, and a lay of sugar: then pour the syrup of the other Cherries
about them, and so let them boil as fast as you can with a quick fire,
that the syrup may boil over them, and when your syrup is thick and of
good colour, then take them up, and let them stand a cooling by
partitions one from another, and being cold you may pot them up.

_To preserve Damsins, red Plums or black._

Take your Plums newly gathered, and take a little more sugar than they
do weigh, then put to it as much water as will cover them; then boil
your syrup a little while, and so let it cool, then put in your Damsins
or Plums, then boil them leasurely in a pot of seething water till they
be tender, then being almost c