PEACH AND THE PEAR. I43 



upright and the trays are raised up and down by an 

 endless chain, to give them more or less heat. There 

 are also horizontal evaporators, and in these the trays 

 are moved by hand, or by a crank arrangement. There 

 are also in use evaporators working by super-heated 

 steam, supplied from a boiler. In all these machines, 

 experience will doubtless suggest many improvements, 

 and I look upon this business, as well as the general fruit 

 interests on this Peninsula, as, comparatively, in their 

 infancy. The great value of this process lies in the fact 

 of the remarkable retention, by the fruit, of its original 

 flavor and of its bright color and clear condition after 

 evaporation. I have no statistics to tell me how much 

 fruit has been evaporated on the Peninsula during the last 

 two years, but it has, doubtless, amounted to thousands 

 and thousands of baskets. The market for the article is 

 widening and gradually extending, but yet for universal 

 use the price is too high. When we can evaporate, to pay, 

 pared peaches at twenty cents per lb. and unpared at 

 from ten to twelve cents, and can get a ton of peaches 

 with a ton of coal, then we can boom the business, and 

 all these good things are surely coming, I hope in the 

 very near future. In fact, now, in the well regulated, 

 large evaporators, I imagine that they often get one ton 

 of evaporated fruit by burning one ton of coal. The 

 smaller machines don't do so well in this respect. 



All that I deem necessary, in a work of this nature, 



