Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-01-22
miscellaneous.
ANEW INDUSTRY.
THE EVAPORATION OF APPLES, POTATOES.
Ere, IN MICHIGAN.

Quite discussion of late has arisen
among the farmers of Southern Michigan
rs to the propriety of planting more apple
orchards, some arguing that the supply is
now equal to or above the demand. This,
on a further investigation, can hardly prove
the case. The European trade that is be-
ing opened for green apples. added to the
immense quantities now being worked up
by the large number of drying factories
throughout Michigan and Ohio, is extend
ing the market to almost all parts of the
world. A Detroit News correspondent
says:n e.gsi is. .f.
Many of the readers of the News may
not be aware of the facilities of these fac
tories or the nl0dus Operdndi of handling
the fruits and vegetables in them. There
is one now running in the county of Lena
wee, which has a capacity of $50 to 400
bushels of apples in twenty-four hours.
1t gives employment to about 60 hands the
most of whom are women and girls The
apples are pared, cored and sliced at once
by hand machinery. These slices are then
spread on galvanized wire screens and at
once placed in the evaporato, or cham
Der running from the top of large fur
mace in the basement upward, out through
the roof Of three story building.
The current of heated air is kept as near
as possible TO 240 degrees. These screens
Of fruit rest on endless chains that move
upward Mt intervals of three to five min
utes, when fresh screen is put in, and
are taken off at the third story completed.
This dried or evaporated product is then
packed in pasteboard boxes holding from
one to five pounds, and these in turn
packed in cases of two hundred pounds
each.
This company win work up this Fall
and Winter upwards of $4,000 bushels of
apples, making near 10000 pounds of
dried fruit, or in other words, reducing a
bushel of apples to about five pounds of
the dried product. This has no semblance
when cooked to the common domestic dried
apple, but when the water is again restor-
cd it is the same green apple again in all
its freshness of color, taste and flavor, and
as a consequence, brings where known a
corresponding price to green apples. The
cores and peelings are by some of the fac
tories worked up into vinegar; this facto-
ny will make near eight hundred barrels
this season.
Others make the cider into apple Jelly,
which is now being used in New York and
Cincinnati as the base from which is made
an endless number of jellies, such as cur
rant, raspberry, peach, pineapple, ETC.,
etc.. simply by adding the extracts to fla
vor the apple jelly, and so perfect is the
imposition that experts are deceived by it,
or in other words, cannot tell it from tina,
made from the fruit itself, with which it is
only favored
The great market now for these evapor.
ated fruits and vegetabes-for any Of the
garden vegetables can be preserved in this
way-is in the West, in the mountainous
and mining regions, and the apple produc,
brings as high as II II to IA cents this
Fall in Chicago, in carload lots.
This trade must increase, and other fac.
tories than those now at work be added
so that the orchardist need have no fear o
the market in ordinary seasons being over
stocked. N.4tJl-LI&r T0E 0lF
Potatoes were last year successfully pre-
pared by this process, as was also suga
corn in quite large quantities.