STRAWBERRIES. 



The great advantage of this contrivance is the following: The dry and freshly- 

 heated air first enters the bottom of the shaft at b and strikes the fruit when the dry- 

 ing process is nearly finished, and completes it ; as this air rises, it receives additional 

 portions of moisture from each successive shelf, until finally it passes off at the top, 

 — the driest portion being needed at the bottom, to complete the process, and those 

 most charged with vapor only coming in contact with the freshest fruit at the top, 

 where only it could be useful. 



The velocity must be so regulated, by experiment, (according to the height of the 

 shaft, heat of the air, and time required for drying,) that the drying process shall be 

 just completed by the time the fruit reaches the bottom, where it drops off from the 

 revolving shelves into baskets or boxes placed there for this purpose. 



This apparatus may be placed in a tall narrow building erected for the purpose, and 

 built cheaply by vertical boarding on a wooden frame, to the whole of which a hand- 

 some architectural exterior may be imparted by giving it the aspect of a square 

 Italian tower or campanile. 



An apparatus of this sort will dry fruit with great rapidity, certainly, and inde- 

 pendently of the most unfavorable changes in the weather ; and it will come out 

 white, clean, and perfectly dried, retaining all the peculiar flavor of the fresh fruit, 

 and prove incomparably superior to the common half-decayed, smoked, imperfect 

 article. When known, such dried fruit must command almost any price in market. 

 Drying establishments, well managed, would give a great impetus to Peach planting 

 in this country ; and we unhesitatingly predict a large trade in the finest dried Peaches 

 in European markets, to which they can be so cheaply and safely conveyed, and 

 where, as fresh Peaches cannot be easily obtained, they cannot fail to be very highly 

 appreciated. 



STRAWBERRIES. 



BY A. S. N. 



As the season is at hand when many persons will plant Strawberries, I hope I shall 

 not be thought to offer unnecessary advice, if I make a few suggestions on Strawberry 

 culture. On most horticultural topics, the mass of your readers have less rather than 

 more practical knowledge, than is generally attributed to them. They need instruc- 

 tion " line upon line." I know this has been and is still the case with myself. 



One of the first requisites for the successful culture of the Strawberry, is a deep soil. 

 If you can devote to it only a small patch of ground, a rod or two square, do not 

 begin by raising a bed above the adjacent ground or walks, rather let it be lower ; as 

 another requisite in the cultivation of this fruit is sufficient moisture, and when the 

 bed is raised the plants sutler from every drouth. As a general rule, it will be best 

 to select for this fruit the lowest part of your garden. Many of your readers must 

 observed that Strawberry plants have a great tendency to " get up in the wor' ' 

 is, the plants get out of the ground two or three inches, and are dried up 



