State Agricultural Society. 323 



extensive improvements have been made in the evaporating apparatus, 

 and its cost lias been reduced by more than one half. The new model 

 evaporator is now offered by the Alden Fruit Preserving Company of 



this city at the price of one thousand dollars. It has all the recent 

 improvements, and while being within the reach of individuals or asso- 

 ciations of moderate means, is more convenient, and operated at less 

 expense, than the original apparatus. As regards the buildings neces- 

 sary to receive the evaporators, their cost in California would be 

 extremely moderate. A common barn, or any ordinary bail ling, can be 

 very cheaply adapted to their reception. The company furnishes, with- 

 out charge, plans and directions to each purchaser for the erection of 

 new or the alteration of old buildings, and furnish superintendence for 

 the erection of the evaporators. The general and increased introduc- 

 tion of the Alden process in California must lead to results which, in 

 their bearing on our future prosperity, can hardly lie over-estimated. 

 Notwithstanding our unequaled advantages of soil and climate, we 

 have hitherto been laboring under great disadvantages in respect to our 

 fruit and vegetable products, in consequence of our distance from a 

 market, and our own sparse population. A few of our productions, such 

 as pears and grapes, have latterly been sent by rail to the Bast in consid- 

 erable quantities, but the great cost of transportation and expensive 

 packing render the competition with local markets too unequal. Our 

 own population cannot consume a fraction of the fruits that could be 

 produced, if all the soil suited for that purpose were so cultivated. 

 Hence, great quantities of land in every respect adapted to the cultiva- 

 tion of costl} 7 , but perishable articles, is of necessity used for stock- 

 raising and the production of cereals. Could, however, this inequality 

 be overcome, by a process which would render the former imperishable, 

 without diminishing its proportionate market value, the gain to the pro- 

 ducers would be enormous. 



This result the Alden process can accomplish, for as it opens the 

 markets of the world to our productions, there can be no reduction in 

 price, as our local demand is insignificant. The value of lands is now 

 regulated, other things being equal, by their distance from a market, but 

 this would in a short time be rendered more equal by a method which 

 could in an economic and expeditious manner preserve their entire pro- 

 duct. This method would also enhance the profits of fruit culture to a 

 degree difficult to exaggerate, not only by rendering waste of any kind 

 unnecessary, but by the removal of anj^ motive for competition to secure 

 a quick sale in the event of an abundant harvest. When it is considered 

 how much of the products of our orchards and vineyards is now wasted 

 and left to rot ungathered, and how much is at times forced on the mar- 

 ket at unremunerative prices, the advantages of a process which will 

 create results as favorable iu one direction as the others are disastrous, 

 must appear overwhelming. The wholesome qualities of the fruits and 

 vegetables cured by this process, and their superiority in this respect 

 over the usual canned articles, are well known. 



The demand for the Alden products is rapidly on the increase, and 

 must continue to be so for a generation to come, even with the additional 

 supply that labor and capital will produce. The profits that must accrue 

 to the land owner from the general adoption of this process may be gath- 

 ered from the fact that by it, according to a careful estimate, a thousand 

 dollars worth of apples, peaches, tomatoes, etc., will not only come from 

 one fourth the acres required for one thousand dollars worth of wheat, 



