336 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more so by being laid out in the drying-yard in rows or squares 

 alongside of the black, ugly things not yet bleached. They never 

 look so pretty afterward, for the sunlight required to dry off the 

 moisture artificially put on blackens them to a certain extent. 

 Here we got the advantage of not moistening too much. Our 

 overdried nuts absorbed part of this moisture, and they could 

 soon be removed from the discoloring influence of sunlight, and 

 the curing finished in the shade. Manipulated in this way, the 

 kernel of the finest paper-shell can not be hurt by the sulphur. 



And this leads us to the observation that, as a rule, the harder 

 the shell, the whiter the almond bleaches. This rule does not 

 hold always and absolutely, for, while no paper-shell approaches 

 the mere soft-shell in whiteness, the whitest of our paper-shells is 

 also the softest-shelled narnelv, the new "California." But 

 while the market pays more for the darkest paper-shell than for 

 the whitest soft-shell, the tourists who visit our yards are always 

 most attracted by the " Standard," the hardest of our soft-shells, 

 because of its showy whiteness. In the market it brings about 

 two thirds the price of our black, old-fashioned paper-shell that 

 is, in the San Francisco market. But just here I had one of my 

 most interesting experiences in almond-growing. I sent fair 

 samples of each of our four varieties to San Francisco and also 

 to Chicago. I was struck by the grotesque difference in the 

 relative prices quoted from these samples. Thus, in cents per 

 pound : 



Variety. 



California paper-shell. 

 Common paper-shell. . 



Languedoc 



Standard 



The tawny skin of the common paper-shell, easily cracked by 

 twisting in the fingers and yielding a large weight of kernel in 

 proportion to weight of shell, was too much for Chicago, and it 

 was quoted away below the heavy-shelled, hard-shelled Stand- 

 ard, requiring the use of the hammer, or the clumsy nut-cracker, 

 and its weight consisting largely of waste shell. 



If any of these varieties had a kernel suitable for the confec- 

 tioner or the baker, and he bought them unshelled, he could 

 afford to pay considerably more for the paper-shells ; for he would 

 be paying for little else but kernels, and these would be easily 

 extracted. However, the kernel used in candies and cakes is that 

 of the imported Jordan almond, in San Francisco as invariably as 

 in Chicago or New York. It is imported shelled, and is longer 

 and smoother than anything we have yet produced. It comes from 

 Malaga. Those who buy nuts by the pound for the table, or to 



