FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 271 



of the profoundest philosophy, hence if I give you the practical results of the 

 factory with which I am connected, yon may he able to form a more correct 

 answer than by any other way. 



There are said to be an almost endless number of fruits and vegetables that 

 can be preserved by this process. I agree that the water can be extracted from 

 anything that contains water ; also, that it is a known law that few things decay 

 without the aid of moisture in some way. But it is true, in my opinion, that 

 some fruits and vegetables cannot be profitably handled by this process. Corn, 

 tomatoes, peas, string beans, cabbage, pumpkin, squash, apples, peaches, and 

 some of the small fruits can be preserved in a state almost if not quite equal to 

 the green fruit, and far better than by the canning process. Apples have been 

 the extensively used by our company of any one article. Our factory has four 

 large sized evaporators, and under ordinary management is capable of working 

 up near three hundred bushels of apples in twenty-four hours. 



During the last fall apples were so plenty and cheap, and other fruits and 

 vegetables so scarce and high, that we did not handle anytliiug but apples. 



The factory started the last week in August and ran till about the 20th of 

 December. 



During that time we employed over fifty girls, and most of the time seven 

 men. The girls were paid seventy-five cents a day, and the two foreman two 

 dollars each, and the firemen and other help one dollar and a half. This help 

 was divided into two sets of hands, one worked days and the other nights. 

 These girls were nearly all of the farmers' daughters living Avithin a very short 

 distance of the factorv, and most of them boarding at home. 



The books of the company show that it paid this help $4,702.41. That there 

 were worked up 22,384 bushels of apples, at a total cost of 15,101.22, making 

 the small sum of 89,863.03 paid to the farmers and their families in less than 

 four months, and that all within a very short distance around us, perhaps the 

 farthest being not over four miles away. 



That amount paid for apples was for a product that must of necessity have 

 been a total loss, or nearly so, had it not been for the factory. Had our fac- 

 tory had the capacity to have consumed fifty times the amount it did we could 

 have supplied it at the same price. Not having the room to store more than 

 three to five thousand bushels at a time, we were obliged to stop when the 

 weather became so cold that apples could not be moved. Our fuel cost us 

 i!5o85, or nearly that amount. The exact amount of wood used daily I could 

 not get at in the haste in which I was obliged to prepare this, as onr superin- 

 tendent furnished me only the aggregate cost, as above. "We manufactured 

 and put up ready for market about 130,000 pounds of the preserved aiiple. in 

 round numbers. 



As to the sale of this product and the profit to the manufacturers, I deem I am 

 not called upon to testify, for it is the value to the farmers that I feel that I am 

 to show, and will only say that I hope it will be as remunerative to them as it 

 has been to the farmers. The least I can say is that it is an enterprise that 

 would be sadly missed in the township of Palmyra where it is located, and as a 

 farmer interested in all that pertains to that most noble of all professions, I 

 can conscientiously say there is value to the farmers of Hillsdale in the Alden 

 process as well as any other process that will bring to your doors a market for 

 bulky and perishable products of your farms, that must otherwise become a 

 burden rather than a profit. 



Had the company of which I have been speaking known one year ago its 



