Fair play., 1917-05-05

this work, and give particular atten
tion to the drying of vegetables 70
household use. The industry was wide
spread and thriving before the out
break of the war. Indeed, it was gen
orally recognized that the German
were the masters of the art.
The vegetables dried are carrots
cabbages, kale, potatoes. spinach, tur
nlps, etc. They represent the marke
surplus which would otherwise rot, anC
which, by being dried and packed. car
be kept without fear Of spelling for ;
long time. The dried vegetables keeI
simply because the better part of theil
moisture content has been removed
The thing sounds simple but the ac
tual process presents difficulties.
The process of drying vegetables re-
| ferred to as having been developed
in this country Is the work of Waldron
Williams, Woodford Brooks and Or
| +. G. Wiechmann. Mr.. Williams tells
| the story of the work of himself and
his associates.
al never realized how little was
known about the art of drying until
my attention was attracted to 1t as a
field of commercial effort" he said. II
turned to my fellow alumni at Column
bia university and hunted high and
low in the technical libraries, but
when 1t came to practical details none
of these sources of information was
of material aid.
FINALLY we decided to make our own
experiments, and something like two
years ago we hit upon the working
principles of our method.
"Our patents have not yet been issued,
although they have been allowed, and
therefore | do not feel warranted in
going into particulars. Broadly, how
ever, the process consists in utilizing
air currents at relatively low tempera-
ture which serve to draw out and
carry off the moisture in the cut-up
vegetables while leaving them unlm-
paired In flavor and nutritive value.
Please observe that the vegetables are
raw and not parboiled or in any way
cooked mt the time they are subjected
to the moisture extracting process.
1--WE are able to control the volume
of the air currents and their tempera-
ture TO Il nicely. The time required to
dry the products depends essentially
upon the fruits and vegetables dealt
with. The period of treatment ranges
between two hours and something
short of five hours. This can be np.
preclated if one will stop to think how
the watery content of various vege-
tables differs.
For instance, fresh beetS contain
81 per cent of water, cabbages 91.5
per cent, onions $40 per cent, potu-
toes rs per cent, and tomatoes as
much as 94.3 per cent. The larger the
volume of water the longer the drying
operation must be maintained I'm order
to reduce the moisture content to the
desired minimum. BY our system We
kept the percentage of moisture well
inside of 10 per cent. This prevents
the development Of the mlcroorgan-
iSms that promote fermentation and
llltItlbtt lllt NiANllllNul u'libuS uIt
checked or avoided which would start
and possibly lead to de-
cay.
Before our plants were working for
the market at Middle River. Cal,
Bound Brook, n. j., and Webster, n.
Y, It occurred to me that II might he
well to visit Germany for the purpose
Of seeing how our products compared
with those turned out by the factories
there. ! was fortified with letters of
to the foremost of those
establishments, and logically | chose
TO make my first call upon the man
aging director of the most noted of the |
vegetable drying companies.
He received me in very hand !
somely appointed office, hearing all the |
lullmarkS Of commercial success, and /
asked me to explain the |
object of my visit. ! did this briefly. |
Al once Herr Direktor waved his |
lnnd deprecatingly and expressed his |
sincere regret that / should have come |
50 far to lay before him anything that |
)crtained 10 the art OF drying. Il |
'ould have saved you the trip, Mr. |
Williams, because we know all there
5 TO know about drying and improve