CHAPTER XXV 



DRIED TRUCK 



As a war measure the surplus vegetables in many city 

 markets have been forced by the governments into large 

 municipal drying plants. Community driers have been 

 established in the trucking regions and even itinerant drying 

 machines have been sent from farm to farm drying the 

 vegetables which otherwise would have gone to waste. 



The drying of vegetables may seem strange to the present 

 generation, but we are very young; to our grandmothers 

 it was no novelty. Many housewives even to-day prefer 

 dried sweet corn to the canned, and find also that dried 

 pumpkin and squash are excellent for pie making. Snap 

 beans often are strung on threads and dried above the stove. 

 Cherries and raspberries still are dried on bits of bark for 

 use instead of raisins. 



This country is producing large quantities of perishable 

 foods every year, which should be saved for storage, canned, 

 or properly dried. Drying is not a panacea for the waste 

 evil, nor should it take the place of storing or canning to 

 any considerable extent where proper storage facilities are 

 available or tin cans or glass jars can be obtained cheap. 



For the farmer's wife the new methods of canning are 

 probably better than sun drying, which requires a somewhat 

 longer time. But dried material can be stored in recep- 

 tacles which cannot be used for canning. Then, too, canned 

 fruit and vegetables freeze and cannot be shipped as con- 

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