182 HORTICULTURE, FORESTRY, FLORICULTURE 



quire no bottom floor. It should be made of good, dry, 1 by 12 inch 

 boxing, 12 feet long, and securely battened. The floor joists should 

 be placed about 6 feet above the ground, and be 2 by 6 inches and 12 

 feet long, resting upon a support in the center of the building. (A 

 building 12 by 12 feet, or 16 by 16 feet, would be large enough for 

 most farmers or fruit men.) 



The upper floor should be made of slats 1 inch square and bev- 

 eled to prevent the fruit from clogging. These are nailed to the 

 joists, % to % inch apart, to allow the hot air to pass up through the 

 fruit which is spread on this floor. The whole space on this floor 

 should be used for drying. Entrance to the room is by stairs on the 

 outside. One or two ventilators in the ridge of the roof will be neces- 

 sary to carry off the moist hot air. Two large stoves with large 

 drums and plenty of pipe on the ground floor will answer for the fur- 

 nace, and if the drying room is but 12 by 12 feet or 16 by 16 feet, 

 one stove will be sufficient. The stoves should be so arranged that 

 they may be fired from the outside. Fruit bins and paring tables are 

 arranged in a lean-to shed against the main building. 



The bins for the apples are always made so as to be filled from the 

 outside, and the fruit removed from the inside through the sliding 

 doors. This fruit is carried in baskets or boxes and placed upon the 

 tables where the paring is done, and as fast as pared, should be 

 placed in boxes to be put upon the slicing machine. After slicing 

 they are dropped into trays made 3 by 3 feet of galvanized wire and 

 at once put into the bleaching house where the fumes of sulphur 

 soon bleach the bruised and discolored parts to a pure white. Care 

 must be exercised not to leave the fruit in the bleacher too long or 

 the flavor will be seriously affected. When properly bleached, none 

 of the fruit flavor or quality is lost, which is always the case when 

 bleaching is done after evaporation. The bleacher can be made to 

 hold two sets of trays, end to end, and an opening made so that they 

 can be taken out at each end, but it is much preferable to have an 

 iron hook so as to draw them all out at the point nearest to the stair- 

 way leading to the drying room. As soon as bleached the trays of 

 fruit should be carried immediately to the drying room and emptied 

 on the floor. Only a few minutes are needed for the bleaching, so 

 that the trays can be kept in use all of the time by the slicing ma- 

 chine. 



This prepared fruit must be put in as rapidly as possible on one 

 side of the drying room so that it will all come out at once when 

 ready for packing into boxes, otherwise a loss of heat and space will 

 result. The same packing tables and the same help that do the paring 

 of the apples may be used for packing the evaporated fruit. The 

 boxes are lined with white paper and then two layers of the best rings 

 are selected and put in the top of the box (the bottom when pack- 

 ing), and then the rest filled in carefully, rejecting anything too soft 

 or too hard to make good fruit. The box is packed tightly and is 

 ready for market. When the evaporator is not in use for the fruit 

 itself it can be used to evaporate the skins and cores, which will often 

 sell for enough to pay the expense of evaporating the apples. Care 



