324 



THE FARMERY. 



[Chap. III. 



which held about a bushel of apples or jieaches cut iu quarters, the iVuit 

 dried with wonderful rapidity. It needed no other attention than cliauijing 

 llie drawers once from top to bottom, to equalize the dr^-ing, so as to linish 

 all at once. Other things besides fruit were dried in this flue, such as sweet 

 C'lrn, okra, pease, tomatoes, etc. 



Tlie following, taken from the Yulley Farmer, is the description of a drv- 

 ing-house in use in AVisconsin : 



"It consists of a building of logs, brick, or stone, of any convenient size, 

 say ten feet wide by twelve or fourteen long, and one story high, having an 

 ordinary roof, with a ventilator to adnut of the escape of tho lieat and vapor 

 arising from the fruit. 



"The furnace should open on the outside of tlie l)uilding, at the end. It 

 sliould be about two feet square. The sides should be of brick, and as thin 

 as may l)e to sustain the top. The flue should be extended to near the entire 

 length of the building, and then return, forming a parallel flue, which nuxy 

 be reduced to two thirds the size of the furnace or main flue, terminating in 

 a chimney near the door of the furnace. Tho top of the furnace and flue 

 should be covered with plates of thin boiler iron ; thicker iron, or a covering 

 of l>rick or stone, will not admit of a sufficient escape of heat to facilitate 

 the drying process. Tlie fruit is dried on trays or hurdles, arranged iu three 

 tiers, one above another, with a space of twelve or fifteen inches between 

 them. The hui-dles may be two and a half feet wide, si.x or seven feet long, 

 and three inches deep. These are made of common boards, with a lath bot- 

 tom, made thin ; the laths should be made of hickory, as the fruit is fotind 

 to dry much more readily on hard wood lath than it does on poplar or other 

 soft wood. Through the length of the building frames are put up to support 

 the hurdles of fruit. These frames or rails extend througli openings made 

 in the end of the building opposite the furnace, and corresponding with each 

 pair of rails are wooden shutters. The rails extend on the outside about six 

 feet ; upon these the hurdles are placed crosswise ; upon each of the hurdles 

 are rollers corresponding with the rails ; being filled with the fruit to be dried, 

 the hurdles are run in like cars upon a railroad. Thus arranged, with the 

 three tiers of rails filled with trays of fruit, about one and a half barrels can 

 be dried at once, requiring about twenty-four hours to complete the opera- 

 tion. The trays nearest the fire will, of course, dry the fastest, and, with the 

 convenience of the railroad and the shutters in the end of the building, they 

 may be drawn out and changed to the upper rails, when the whole may be 

 finished within the twenty -four hours in the most perfect and uniform man- 

 ner, and without the least burning. The fire should be made without grates, 

 on the bottom of the furnace, which consumes less fuel, and keeps up a more 

 uniform heat than if placed above the draft. 



" In some instances we have seen pieces of old steam-boilers substituted 

 in the place of brick walls for a furnace ; to the boiler is connected and re- 

 turned a pipe of somewhat smaller dimensions, a sheet-iron pipe, which ad- 

 mits of the free escape of heat and speedy drying of the fruit. 



