Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-05-31
TR0PIC FRUIT PROCESS.
A Jew SYSTEM OF EVAPORATION
RECENTLY PERFECTED.

The decline of the tropical regions of
America has of late years been a fruit
full topic OF discussion. Well provided
as the public has been with statistics
as to the condition of those once fa-
Vored countries, no one who has not
seen with his eyes the present state of
affairs can fully realize the change. In
a land where nature is so prodigal that
almost the casual thrusting of a
branch into the earth insures a tree,
desolation and poverty are everywhere
found. The reason is plain enough it
is only the remedy that has remained
problem. The products of the tropics
are gratis, and the expectation of these
involves a greater risk and a larger
knowledge of the subject than has been
at the command of these countries. On
| every side there is a waste of food
fairly maddening to the student of
economics; but how to utilize this su-
perabundance, how to convey it in
i proper shape to the millions who win
only bare sustenance from over
worked soils III other countries, is the
great and hitherto unsolved problem.
The solution now suggested is one
which has the sanction of Australia,
and this means more than appears on
J the surface. Whether it be because
Australia has fewer lives to care for
and finds them more precious, or be-
cause the authorities have less to do,
cannot be now debated; but the fact
is that Australians are not permitted
to poison themselves with adulteratei
food, as is the glorious privilege of free
! citizens in this country. The govern
ment watches with never sleeping
eye the food which supplies the tables
of the people. When, therefore, the
Australian government indorses a
process and gives it medals galore, it
means that science has set her seal
on it, The system of fruit preservation
which is now being introduced into the
West Indies and Central America has
and vegetables are not dried ON the
countries of Australasia.
Th new system is one of evapora-
tion, but the process differs from 9TH
ers in that it is quickly done and in
sures absolute cleanliness. The fruit
and vegetables are not dried on the
ground for days together, like figs,
prunes and similar preserves. Five or
six hours is all that is required to
change the fruit into an article that
will keep for months and years, and
still preserve the original dayor-in
some cases actually improve it. 1t is
not, however, so much the mechanical
process as the effect on the tropics
which interests the ordinary observer,
and it is in this direction that it is at
| present being developed
There is no fruit in the world so
easy and cheap to raise as the banana,
or which contains more nutriment and
can be served in a greater variety of
ways. Yet there is no fruit which is
! so carelessly exported and the general
value of which is so little understood.
The banana is the main object of at
tack under the new evaporation sys-
| TEN. The exporting companies use
only the largest bananas, and every
year thousands and thousands of
| punches rot on the plantations in the
tropics. The new evaporation process
takes these smaher bananas and makes
them into a dozen different marketable
commodities. There is banana flour,
to begin with, delicacy which is used
for the making of cakes, fritters AMI
the like. There is banana prepared as
a substitute ian excellent one) for cit
ron and raisons in fruit cake. 1t also
makes a delicate preserve not unlike
and quite as delicate as figs and
]
product; this is a sort of jam, which
is not unknown in tropical countries
as a great delicacy rather difficult to
make by the old-fashioned process. All
these products can now be marketed at
small cost. The machinery is not
elaborate, and the original cost of the
fruit is almost nothing. 1t is esti-
mated that the banana butter, for in
stance, can be put on the European
market and sold there at less than half
the price of any native condiment. To
the poor of Europe, whose list of deli
cacies is so limited, this will be no
small blessing.
The banana is not the only tropical
fruit which is being treated by the new
! process. ANY one who has lived in
tropical countries knows that the ne
groes who are out of the track of civil
ization make from the cassava kind
Of flour which is extremely wholesome
and cheap. This is also being put up
for expectation. The extremely nu-
tritious olra (the value of which is
fully realized in the tropics, where it
is constantly in use as food for in
valids) is being prepared in quantities
for expectation. In it's canned form
the okra necessarily fails to retain all
its value as food. but the eXaporated
vegetable has been proved by analysis
to contain all the nuitriment The man
who makes okra soup standard food
among the poor of any country is be-
slowing a permenent benefit. Sweet
potato flour is also made for exporta-
tion.
Tho british povernnoen is inst now