Winter Meeting, 325 



feet long, 2J/2 feet high and 2 feet wide, made of cast iron three-eighth 

 inches thick, cast in five parts and bolted together with a door the full 

 size of the end. Weighs 1,600 pounds and made at Ft. Scott foundry. 

 These four rooms are built of stone, which is preferable to wood for 

 many reasons : Far safer and gives off heat at night after fires go down 

 to a surprising degree. Above these heaters, and 18 inches from the 

 slatted floor above, is a lo-inch iron pipe running completely around the 

 room and going out through the stone wall. The uper story is frame, 

 pine boards, well battened, with ventilator in the top of each room. 

 On the slatted floor, after peeling, trimming and bleaching, are spread 

 the apples from 4 to 8 inches deep, according to the amount peeled that 

 day. They are usually on the floors about 20 hours. They can be 

 dried quicker, but it is often more economy to leave them on 36 hours, 

 or over two nights. The past five years we have dried the apples whole 

 for several reasons. It saves the slicing, saves waste through the floors, 

 saves the facing and, we think, they look better and sell better. The 

 skins and cores are dried on the roof in good weather, and on the in- 

 side in bad weather, if we have the room. There are many details con- 

 nected with evaporating that it is not necessary to here relate. If further 

 information is desired, I shall be willing to answer any questions, at 

 least up to the point of "incrimination." As to the profits of the busi- 

 ness, one can count on clearing about 20 cents per bushel one year with 

 another for the cull apples. The skins and cores often sell for enough 

 to pay a good part of the expense. When not salable they make excel- 

 lent feed for horses, cattle and hogs. During the past eight years, six 

 of which might fairly be classed as failures, we have made 70 tons of 

 evaporated apples and about the same amount of skins and cores. These 

 have been the means of tiding us over these bad years, and, in fact, has 

 been the financial sheet anchor of the orchard business. Most of this 

 product has been sold through a commission firm in this city, which 

 I might say in passing, has adhered very closely to the golden rule. 



Evaporating apples is a business that not every one is adapted to 

 or has a liking for. To the kid-gloved dude or to those who have a 

 strong aversion to soiled clothes or manual labor, we would not recom- 

 mend the business. But to the intelligent young man of good physique, 

 with the normal amount of courage and pluck, the fruit business, es- 

 pecially the evaporating part, opens up a wide and almost unoccupied field 

 of splendid possibilities. It may be a weakness in us, but at the age 

 of eight and fifty I had rather put on my warm felt boots, go out 

 into the orchard of a crisp frosty morning with my saw and long pruning 

 shears, take out the broken limbs, shape up the tree for future crops, 



