Year: 1873

business. Rather prepare yourselves
beforehand for the state of affairs that
your past experience teaches you will
be realized. Put up your drying scat
folds or drying houses, and be prepar-
ed to dry all your fruit as it ripens,
and only sell in Il green state when
the prices warrant good profit over
and above expenses; or after Il careful
investigation of the facts i'm the case,
you find that it will pay better to pre-
serve your fruit i'm cans than to sell it
green or to dry ii, then prepare your
self with the necessary cans and other
facilities for saving ii in this way.
But do not, we beseech you, pursue
the unreasonable and Improbable
course you have heretofore pursued to
your own great loss and to the great
scandal of the State.


PROCESS or DRYING IN THE sun.


There are many processes for drying
fruits, the most common being on
scatfolds in the sun. Perhaps no State
i'm the Union has so favorable eli
mate for drying fruit iu this manner
as ours, and yet to succeed we'll by this
process SO that the fruit will command
the highest price, some skill and con-
siderable care is required. 1t is unne-
cessary here to describe the process
all are familiar with it-but we will
call attention to u fact which none
who would make u success of drying
fruit in the sun, i'm this State, should
overlook. 1t is that nine times out OF
ten, if fruit thus dried be packed away
without the necessary precaution OF
scalding, it will be ruined by worms in
less than one month after the packing.
We would therefore lay it down as n
rule always to be followed: When
your fruit of whatever kind is sufli-
ciently dry, dip it in boiling water for
at least half minute, after which
again expose it to the sun or place it
in an oven until the surface water has
been evaporated. 1t is then ready to
pack or send to market. Besides in
suring against danger from worms,
this scalding will greatly improve the
may be dried.


ARTIFICIAL PROCESSES.


a process invented and patented Il
few years ago in Maryland has been
used in this State very successfully.
The machinery used consists of a tWn-
mel five feet square and fifteen feet
long, in which the fruit, after being
prepared by peeling, etc, is placed for
drying on shelves, one above the other.
The air at the bottom of the tunnel is
then heated by means of pipes to about
lSO degrees-at the top it will be above
10 BY means of machinery the
| ,t.lx
through the tube and when ut the bot
tom having been dried sufficiently by
the heated air, are discharged into II
receiver ready for packing. This is Il
simple and quick method of drying,
and it is claimed to be superior to the
sun process, inasmuch as the fruit is
not IN the least fermented. All the
natural flavor is therefore fully pre-
served so that when cooked the fruit
has all the freshness of green fruit.


Another process may be described
as follows: The fruit is cut up in thin
pieces by machinery, and then placed
ON galvanized wire cloth in close
room that excludes all dust and in-
sects. A heated current of air is then
forced through it by a powerful eX-
haust fan, which completes the dry
ing process in from four to six hours.
Fruit dried in this manner was eX-
hibited at our State Fair last Fall and
commands in the San Francisco
market about fifty percent. more than
sun dried fruits of the same varieties.
This latter process is very economical
and efiectual, and we would recon-
mend those who have any quantity Ol
fruit to look to it.


CANNING FRUIT.


The more popular mode Of prescrv.
ing fruit of late years is by canning
and excluding the air SO as to prevent
the tendency to decay. Any mean'
10y which the air can be eflectually eX.
cluded from fruit will perserve 1t in
the same condition as it was in ut the
time the air is excluded, any length o
time-even n thousand years. Tho
most common vessel used for this pur
pose is the tin can. This is probably
the cheapest, but for all fruits tina
have considerable acidity glass il
much better. Fruit acids act upon tn,
tin and thus the fruit itself acquires /,
disagreeable tinny taste, and becomes
actually injurious instead of beneficia
as all fruit should be to health.-[ Sac