Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1915-10-19
(By Earl C. Brownlee.)

Wy Gdll W. DIOWultt.D
Out of the 100,O00,000 pounds OF
extra fancy Polk county and Oregon
prunes that have been going through
the j. K. Armsby company's packing
plant at Dallas since packing started
last month, | selected, last week, a
fine large specimen (they are all fine
large prunes, for Oregon, and especial
ly Polk county, does not grow any
other kind) and followed it around
with watchful and interested eyes for
an hour or so, until it was finally
packed by experienced hands and car
ried to the cars for shipment to New
York City, which, Mr.. Peterson, the
manager, tells me is the greatest
prune distributing point in the world.
The course of the very edible looking
fruit must have been long and tedi-
GUS, unless all the feeling had been
dried out Of it by the grower, but it
seemed to improve with age and when
it landed in the packing box it was
a morsel tempting enough for the most
exacting epicure.
When l picked the prune from the
growers sack it was weighed, along
with enough others to make pound,
and the grower was paid according to
the average that was struck. There
were something like fifty prunes in
the pound in which my specimen fell.
1t was thrown back into the sack
where | had found it and carried to
the grader elevator, where it was
weighed again, and dumped into a pit
which led to the elevator buckets
The prune fell into the first bucket
that came along and was carried to
the second floor I arrived there Just
in time to see it disappear in long,
enclosed grader. There, 1 am told, it
had a rough and adventurous Journey
oyer screen with holes Of gradual
ed size. 1t came within an ace of
pitching through a hole once or twice,
to its absolute destruction, but even
tually was carried almost to the end
OF the grader. 1t fell through the
screen into receptacle with a door
at the bottom where it was released
into little cart, weighed again, and
dumped into bin to await an order
for that particular size and grade of
fruit.
Pretty soon word came up from
the office that European markets
wanted rush order filed for $4,000
boxes of select Columbia plums. There
my prune met its fate. It was haul
ed out of its hiding place and taken
to "Processer," succession of
buckets where little water and a
great amount of steam were fussing
around at the boiling temperature of
'212 degrees. That Temperature is
maintained at all times in the pro-
cesser, and is checked by series of
thermometers and recording instru-
ments. In the processer the prune
got what was coming to it. 1t went
slowly through the water and the
steam and was very thoroughly wash
ed and cleansed. If last springs lit
tie green bug was still attached to
the prune's hide, and I had kind of
suspicion that he was there
somewhere, he certainly gave up his
last hope of immortality in hurry,
and the swishing water washed him to
A wet, hot grave. Nothing could pos {
'ibly stick to the fruit through that
process. The great heat and steam I
would kill any life and the water {
would wash it away, so that the fruit
,ame out without a speck or grain of s
lust of any kind. Then my prune S
ode the bumps. A jogging screen s
'eceived it as it came from the pro- ,
lesser and jolted it up and down and i
lround most joyfully until it was en- !
irely dry, and, being clean, it was I
Weighed again and sent off to the c
A number of girls face the t