. STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 35 



which of course is an item that always has to be taken into 

 consideration. 



§ 



Q. I would like to ask if natural fruit apples would be just as 

 good as grafted fruit ? 



A. Any variety of apples, as far as I have observed, that 

 proves itself to be a good cooking apple is all right for evapo- 

 rating. 



Q. How small would it pay to use them ? 



A. Well, in paring apples we reckon an apple that is an inch 

 and a half or two inches in size would be all right, and an apple 

 that you don't want to put into a barrel of apples of course would 

 be all right for that, but the larger the apples the better the 

 product, the more to the bushel. 



Mr. Pope : I have had a little experience in evaporating 

 apples. I found first that the Maine fruit well evaporated and 

 well handled would bring a bigger price than the Western fruit. 

 There is more acid in the Maine apple than there is in the West- 

 ern apple, and as you all know an apple in drying loses its acidity, 

 and that is one of the difficulties. There is not acid enough in 

 the Western apple for a nice cooking apple, therefore the Maine 

 fruit being more acid is worth more in the Boston market than 

 the Western fruit for this reason. Then again the Maine fruit 

 put up by the farmer, if he is a mind to take the pains with it, 

 will make a whiter, nicer product and will bring a larger profit. 

 Therefore the chance for money in evaporating our Maine apples 

 is in putting up a little nicer article than the general article in the 

 market. And we found, and others in Maine have found, that 

 two or three cents a pound extra can be procured on nice Maine 

 evaporated apples in the Boston market. The only way that we 

 have been able to make much money out of it w T as in evaporating 

 in the years when apples were so plenty that the product was 

 absolutely worthless, you might say, worth nothing except to feed 

 to stock. Put it up in fine shape, bleach it before it goes into the 

 evaporator, take out all the skins, cores and worm holes, and put 

 up nice apples, well bleached. Then place it in cold storage and 

 hold it till the next season, when you are almost sure to have a 

 short crop when evaporated apples being up higher will pay for 

 all this extra work. In that way you have secured some profit. 

 But in a season like this when apples are high and scarce there 



