142 THE CULTIVATION OF THE 



The second makes one feel better, and the third makes 

 him feel as though he owned the whole Delaware and 

 Chesapeake Peninsula. But the next day — the awak- 

 ing — ah, the awaking, surely, instead of owning the 

 whole Delaware and Chesapeake Peninsula, he finds his 

 possessions, (A friend at my elbow suggests, " except 

 his head,") shrunken to a size Liliput might spurn. 

 EVAPORATING THE PEACH. 

 Evaporating, drying, or desiccating the peach is a 

 recent introduction and has, in a measure, revolutionized 

 the whole business. As there are probably now twenty- 

 five or thirty thousand acres of peach trees in bearing, 

 and the average yield may, probably, be one hundred 

 baskets per acre, per year, we can well see what a boon 

 to the growers there must be in any agent which shall 

 prove a factor in relieving the market of surplus stock, 

 and particularly of those grades of fruit which it does 

 not pay to ship. Especially would this be the case with 

 a phenomenal crop, when the yield might run up to six 

 or eight millions of baskets. It is in these cases that 

 the evaporator comes in, and for its introduction the 

 fruit growers are under many obligations. The process 

 consists in evaporating the moisture of the fruit by con- 

 veying it (the fruit) gradually through hot-air chambers, 

 it having been prepared and placed on metal trays with 

 wire surfaces and iron frames, or on trays with wooden 

 frames with wire surfaces. Some of the evaporators are 



