460 CALIFORNIA FRUITS I HOW TO GROW THEM 



An oil dip has been profitably used with Thompson's Seedless : 

 One quart of olive oil ; 24 P un d Greenbank soda and 3 quarts 

 water are made into an emulsion, and then reduced with 10 gallons 

 water in the dipping tank, adding more soda to get lye-strength enough 

 to cut the skins, and more soda has to be added from time to time to 

 keep up the strength. The grapes are dipped in this solution and 

 sulphured to the proper color. 



Mr. Hecke's Way With Dipped Raisins. Much experimenta- 

 tion has been undertaken by California growers to improve the process 

 of making dipped raisins. The following is the method devised and 

 largely used by Mr. G. H. Hecke of Woodland, Yolo County, in 

 handling Thompson and Sultana raisins : 



Before drying they are dipped in a solution of sodium bicarbonate, which just 

 takes the bloom off, but does not cut the skin. This reduces the time of drying 

 about half, so what it costs in one way it saves in part in another. A crew of 

 seven men can keep two vats going and turn out 1,600 trays a day, 500 trays per 

 ton of raisins. 



The stock solution of bicarbonate is a pound to a gallon of water. It is diluted 

 about 3 to 1, the proportion varying with the effect on the grapes, more of the 

 stock solution being added as desired. The grapes are dipped in wire trays in 

 this warm solution and about four wire trays are needed to a vat. A thin layer 

 of olive oil is kept on the surface of the solution, a trace of which touches the 

 surface of the grapes as they come out and gives them the right color and 

 quality. Only a tablespoonful of oil is added at a time and the actual amount of 

 oil used is very small about one gallon to 500 trays. 



This method of bleaching is held to be vastly superior to sulphur drying. It 

 gives as fine a looking raisin as the sulphured, the raisin has a natural flavor 

 that is very attractive, and is better in other ways. The raisins are sun dried in 

 eight to ten days, the trays being stacked if rain threatens, artificial drying not 

 being necessary. The total cost of making raisins is about $25 per ton, including 

 harvesting. 



GRAPE SYRUP 



The manufacture of grape syrup, which was formerly of consider- 

 able prominence as a means of disposing of wine grapes, has recently 

 received less attention because of low prices in competition with the 

 vast amount of syrup available from the sugar refineries. 



MACHINE EVAPORATION 



Although California summer conditions of adequate heat and dry 

 air favor open-air evaporation to such an extent that nearly all our 

 product of cured fruit is secured in that way, there are some parts of 

 the State where artificial heat would be a safer recourse and there are 

 late fruits which sometimes collide with early rains in a way to cause 

 losses even in our best sun-curing regions. 



It is interesting, therefore, to describe a machine evaporator con- 

 structed upon true principles and having capacity sufficiently large 

 to encourage its use. Mr. L. W. Parsons of Campbell, Santa Clara 

 county, has given most of his life to the design and construction of 

 fruit evaporators, and secured patents thereupon which have expired 

 and are now public property. In the Pacific Rural Press of June 19 



