324 State Horticultural Society. 



by making a clean grade of No. 2 apples, thereby enlarging the amount 

 of cider apples, by so doing reaching all classes and broadening and in- 

 creasing the demand for apples. When we do this our No. 2 apples will 

 be "swallowed up in victory." 



EVAPORATING. 



(W. H. Benedict, Richards, Mo.) 



It was a Stormy day in April, 1867, that a green and dissatisfied 

 boy left an attractive home on the south shore of Long Island and came 

 west to seek his fortune and grow up with the country. Among his 

 first acquaintances in Missouri was a cousin, who had moved down from 

 the bleak prairies of Minnesota in search of fruit and a warmer climate. 

 On the place he had bought in Bates county were a number of 

 Geniton trees, in their prime, the apples from one of which he sold to a 

 neighbor that fall direct from the tree, 30 bushels at 75 cents per bushel, 

 $22.50. Stevens and I soon had ourselves figured pretty wealthy rais- 

 ing apples in Missouri. In a year or tv/o Stevens had planted 70 acres 

 of orchard, and in 1869 my brother and I moved to Vernon county, 

 and in the course of 12 years planted about 200 acres of orchard. The 

 first apples these trees bore were fair and beautiful — practically without 

 spot or blemish. As the trees grew older mysterious specks began to 

 appear on leaves and fruit, which we then comprehended not, and in a 

 few years fruit from the older trees ceased to be marketable, and we cast 

 about for ways and means to make some profit out of what was going to 

 waste. About 1888 my brother and I built a home-made dryer, and con- 

 tracted in advance the dried fruit for 12 cents per pound. The same year 

 we sold green apples at $2.75 per ii-peck barrel. Things still looked good 

 for the orchard business. Two years later my brother built quite an 

 expensive plant, which he ran for about six years with varying success, 

 only to be burned to the ground its best year with a nearly total loss of 

 $4,000. In 1897, after a year's study and observation, we con- 

 menced our present evaporator and finished it as at present five years 

 later. It is similar in principle to the ones throughout South Missouri, 

 and is known as the "Hop Kiln Plan." The total size of building is 

 74x34 feet 16 feet high in front and 18 at back, making a slanting roof, 

 facing south. The center room, 32x32, is the peeling and bleaching 

 room, with a driveway for wagons with apples. Oti each side of this 

 room, or in each corner of the building, are the four heating rooms, 

 16x18 in the clear, containing in each a heater of our own design, 7 



