SULPHURING AND DRYING 451 



secure an amount of desirable feed or hay by putting the piece down 

 in alfalfa. Mr. P. T. Gannon of Yolo County proceeded in this way. 

 He lowered the tramway tracks to the ground level, and turned up a 

 furrow on the sides to hold the water from flooding the adjacent 

 ground. In the fall, after the fruit-drying was over, he flooded the 

 space, which is a little over half an acre (125 by 225 feet). Then it 

 was disked both ways and leveled and harrowed and planted to alfalfa 

 before the rains. The land was moist at the time and the seed came 

 up and the plants grew more or less through the winter. In April he 

 cut the first crop. Just before the space is needed for a drying yard, 

 make another cutting, about June 20th, cutting it down close and raking 

 it clean. The yard is then ready for the trays and fruit. When the 

 drying season is over the yard is cleared, and the space then is as clean 

 as a clay floor, from being used so much. In three weeks the top of the 

 ground is green all over, and before the rains come there is another, 

 cutting crop, making three crops a year, a ton at each cutting. So 

 something is made from the space and the dust problem is solved, which 

 means clean fruit and better prices. 



Grading. It is of great advantage in drying to have all the fruit 

 on a tray of approximately the same size, and grading before cutting 

 is advisable. Machines are now made which accomplish this very 

 cheaply and quickly.* 



Cutting-Sheds. Shelter of some kind is always provided for the 

 fruit-cutters. Sometimes it is only a temporary bower made of poles 

 and beams upon which tree branches are spread as a thatch ; sometimes 

 open-side sheds with boarded roof, and sometimes a finished fruit-house 

 is built, two stories high, the lower story opening with large doors on 

 the north side, and with a large loft above, where the dried fruit can 

 be sweated, packed, and stored for sale. The climate is such that 

 almost any shelter which suits the taste of the purse of the producer 

 will answer the purpose. 



Sulphuring. The regulations promulgated under the pure food 

 law enacted by Congress in 1906 established an arbitrary limit to the 

 percentage of sulphur compounds in evaporated fruits, which was 

 shown by producers to be destructive to their industry, and otherwise 

 unwarranted and ureasonable. As a result of their protest the enforce- 

 ment of such regulations was indefinitely postponed, pending the results 

 of scientific investigation which began in 1898. 



From the point of view of the California producer it must be held 

 that before the employment of the sulphur process, California cured 

 fruits were suitable only to the lowest culinary uses. They were of 

 undesirable color, devoid of natural flavor, offensive by content of insect 

 life. They had no value which would induce production and discern- 

 ible future. Placing the trays of freshly cut fruit in boxes or small 

 "houses," with the fumes of burning sulphur, made it possible to pre- 

 serve its natural color and flavor during the evaporation of its surplus 

 moisture in the clear sunshine and dry air of the California summer. 

 It also prevented souring, which with some fruits is otherwise not pre- 



*See under plums and prunes," page 456. 



