with average crop returns of one hundred and fifty
dollars per acre.

Kelp, also, is utilized in Japan, not alone for glue, sizing and iodine,
but as a food--kombu. In this country, it is sometimes used to fertilize
the low-lying, barren lands near the shore.

In the marketing of the vegetable sea food known as Irish moss, New
England comes to the fore. This is a delicious food product used much as
corn starch for blancmange, jellies, custards, and puddings.

In a book relating to candy-making, why this information concerning the
unappreciated food value of seaweed? Because the discovery of the
possibilities that cheap and common vegetables can well serve as the
basis for the best candy may well be supplemented by the utilization of
seaweeds, valuable as a food, but now wasted. In the midst of her work,
the candy-cook may well stop to think that it is by putting cheap and
common things to new uses that the race will make material progress.

XX

STUFFED FRUITS

=Dates for Candy.=--For the basis of dates as candies, Fard dates are
perhaps the best because they are generally whole with unbroken skins.
If Persian dates are to be used instead, they should be of the sort that
come packed in single layers or in small boxes. The skins of Persian
dates are tender and when taken from boxes holding fifteen or twenty
pounds are torn by the sharp pick used to handle them. When cream
fillings are used, however, softer dates can be substituted if they are
carefully handled.

=Sparkling Dates.=--Wash, steam, pit, and dry. Fill them with rhubarb
marmalade, and close them very tightly. Brush the whole outside surface
with the unbeaten white of an egg, and roll the dates so coated in
coarse granulated sugar. If Fard dates cannot be obtained, select as
perfect Persian dates as possible. Fill them with rhubarb marmalade as
for the Fard dates, but do not use the egg coating. Simply roll in the
sugar.

=Chocolate Covered Dates.=--Proceed as above up to the point at which
the dates are rolled in sugar. To make the chocolate confection, roll
the dates in confectioner's sugar, instead of in the coarse granulated.
After they have dried, coat them as usual with chocolate.

=Date Brilliants.=--Wash, steam, and pit dates; fill them with either
vegetable cream or cream fondant. Dip them singly in a crystal syrup,
cooked to two hundred and twenty-five degrees. Dry them on a rack. For
fillings, a great variety is possible. Add finely