144 THE RAISIN INDUSTRY. 



To prevent too rapid drying out after the raisins are nearly ready, the 

 practice now is to stack the trays in the field. 



This stacking simply consists in placing the trays which contain the 



ready raisins on top of each other, in piles five feet high. On the top 



x of every such pile are placed several loose trays crosswise, so as to 



7 shelter the pile from the sun, and possibly even from rain, and other 

 trays are raised up against the sides of the pile in order to exclude as 

 much air as possible. If, however, the raisins are rather underdried, 

 the side trays may be left out so as to allow the raisins to dry more. 

 It is always best to stack the trays before the raisins are fully dried, as 

 they will finish drying and curing in the stack much better than in the 

 sun. The underdried raisins will thus dry just enough, while the 

 overdried ones, or those just right, will not dry much more. 



After the stacking is done, the assorting is in order. This consists 



\/ in taking out every bunch that is not sufficiently dried to go into the 

 sweatbox, and placing them on new trays to dry more. At this time, 

 also, the bad or inferior and red berries may be taken out, if present in 

 a very large quantity on good bunches ; but when there are only a few 

 on, it is better not to touch the bunch, as, in handling it, it is 



^ only too apt to break. Any further picking out of bad berries had 

 better be deferred to the packing-house. The boxing and assorting, 

 which may be considered together, consist in transferring the dif- 

 ferent grades of the now dried raisins to separate sweatboxes. This 

 is done in two ways. The number one bunches, which have been 

 placed on separate trays, may now simply be slid into the sweat- 

 box, by a dexterous movement of the tray. Between every two 

 layers of these first-class bunches should be placed a stout manilla 

 paper cut so as to exactly fit the box. It is of importance to have 

 the paper just fit the box, and not be too large nor too small, as in 

 either case the raisins are apt to become mixed and the bunches 

 broken. But, if the grapes have not been assorted from the beginning 

 on separate trays, more work will be required to get them into the 

 sweatboxes. Every bunch must be carefully taken up by hand from 

 the tray, and then placed on the paper in the box. But in doing so 

 many bunches are necessarily broken, as even careful hands cannot 

 help frequent mishaps, while ignorant and careless workmen may do 

 an immense injury to the crop. Too few manilla papers are generally 

 used. Some packers require only two papers in every box, while six 

 or eight, or at least five, papers should be the proper number for every 

 box of very choice or even ordinary layers. We must remember that, 

 the more papers we use, the less apt are the bunches to be injured, but 

 even the best layer bunches will not suffer if placed two layers high 

 between every paper. On top and in the bottom of every box must be 

 one paper, so as ta keep out dust. The loose and inferior raisins, 

 which either have been left on the tray after the layers are picked 

 out, or which from the beginning have been placed on separate trays, 

 may now, when perfectly dry, be simply dumped in sweatboxes 

 without any paper. 



We have thus at least two kinds of sweatboxes. One kind contains 

 those raisins which are destined to make layers, and which require 



