THE SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 375 



APPLE EVAPORATORS. 



A correspondent of the Husbuudnian says that the evaporating process is 

 slowly working a revolution in the dried fruit industry, especially with the pro- 

 duct of the apple. It renders the dried article so far superior in appearance 

 and quality to that produced by the old methods, that the latter have been 

 nearly driven from the market. Evaporated apples become a staple wherever 

 they are known, and the scope of their market is constantly growing wider. 



An increased demand for dried fruit tends to create an increased demand for 

 green fruit, and ojjeratcs favorably to the business of fruit production. By 

 utilizing the surplus of apples in busy seasons of over-production, the evapora- 

 ting process helps to equalize and insure the apple market. Large evaporators, 

 located in extensive apple-producing regions, by appropriating vast amounts of 

 fruit that would otherwise be forced upon the market, make room for tlie product 

 of thousands of orchards which, without this outlet, must inevitably go to 

 waste. 



The tendency of this revolution in apple drying is to make the production of 

 apples a reliable business. "We think that farmers who have come to the con- 

 clusion that apple growing is unprofitable need no longer fear to set out apple 

 trees. In average seasons the fruit will always be in demand ; and in years of 

 over production, which have heretofore been a dread, it will command a price 



that will well repay harvesting. 

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We export to Europe annually about 6,000,000 pounds of evaporated apples, 

 but there is no room to doubt that this quantity can be largely increased. An 

 English commercial paper, discussing the subiect of American canned goods, 

 says: 



There is no country enjoying a fairly temperate climate in which home grown 



fruit is so scarce and so dear as in England. There can be no question that the 



demand for dried and preserved fruits is capable of almost indefinite expansion, 



with larger and more varied supplies, for the supply at present is so inadequate, 



that some varieties even of leading descriptions can not be had for months at a 



time, and the trade, indeed, almost comes to a standstill during the summer, 



not so much because of the supply of green fruit — for that is always very dear 



in the larger towns — but simply because there is so little dried fruit to sell. 

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The American Rural Home announces the formation of a society of fruit 

 evaporators, and comments upon it as follows: 



We are very glad this organization has been formed and hope it will be able 

 to accomplish the purposes for which it was instituted. We hailed the inven- 

 tion of evaporators with joy, believing that it opened a cheap and practical 

 way of preserving the surplus products of our orchards, in bearing years, for 

 consumption in non-bearing years, and also that it indicated a means of 

 extending the market of our fruits over the civilized globe. We have been a 

 consumer of evaporated apples for several years, and we have noticed that the 

 quality of what was sold as first-class has gradually deteriorated until we do 

 not purchase now without close examination. 



Some evaporators have evidently used fruit that never ought to be nsed, 

 immature, partially grown fruit, that from worminess or other causes drop 

 through the summer some time before the period of ripening; fruit that would 

 not sell in its green state at all in our markets. Swine and sheep should be 

 allowed i*o run in the orchard and pick up such fruit as it falls, and it should 



