248 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Autumn Swaar apples dried in two hours. 



No particular account of the sweet potatoes shown is taken, because they 

 were treated imperfectly and are not fair samples. These articles were all cured 

 the past year. 



Mr. John Williams, of South Haven, has also on exhibition fruit and vege- 

 tables, cured by a process of his own invention, not yet fally developed to the 

 public, as follows : 



Wagener apples dried in two and a quarter hours. 



Yellow Belleflower dried in two and a quarter hours. 



Sweet Bough dried in two and a half hours. 



President dried in two and a quarter hours. The greater sweetness of the 

 Sweet Bough required the longer time to dry it. 



Crawford peaches dried in four hours. 



Seedling peaches dried in four hours. 



Bartlett pear dried in one and thi-ee-quarter hours. 



Winter Xelis pear dried in two and a half hours. 



Green Gage and Damson plums dried in five hours. 



Kittatinny blackberries dried in five hours. 



Pumpkins dried in two and a half hours. 



Hubbard squash dried in two hours. 



Turban squash dried in two and a half hours. 



Your committee enter upon no explanation to the Society of the details of 

 the two processes by which these products have been preserved for the season 

 that both Mr. Williams, the inventor of one mode, and Mr. Dietrich, the intel- 

 ligent manager of an Alden Factory, are present and will explain to the entire 

 satisfaction of the meeting. 



All these fruits are presented in a neat and attractive shape, and differ in 

 appearance from the ordinary house dried fruit, as faded brown differs from a 

 lightly tinged white. Both exhibitors present their fruit soaked in water, and 

 in this condition it tastes and looks like green fruit. The Alden fruit has been 

 shown your committee cooked into sauce which exactly resembles green apples 

 stewed. 



Your committee are disposed to accord particular prominence to this class of 

 fruit, and hail the competition set up by Mr. Williams to the Alden process as 

 an indication that genius and science are busy devising improved modes for 

 curing fruit that directly and largely enhances the value of both fruits and 

 vegetables, and indicates further that there are progressive spirits who are 

 unwilling to concede that the splendid process patented by Mr. Alden is the 

 perfection of all that trained ingenuity can attain in that direction, and are 

 making efforts to discover a better. This affords encouragement for the great 

 future fruit growing of Michigan, because if fruit can be cheaply and rapidly 

 converted into such shape as the fruit we have been called upon to examine, 

 fruit growers will have the wide world for a market, and a demand beyond their 

 capacity to supply. 



Preserving fruit by a process that only removes the water and leaves it with 

 all its original flavor and color, is the most encouraging direction in which fruit 

 producers can look for assistance in securing the enduring prosperity of their 

 occupation. Of course the canning process will always recommend itself for 

 certain purposes, but a dehydrating process like that of Mr. Williams and Mr. 

 Alden, possesses the great advantage over canning of more cheaply saving the 



