144 THE CULTIVATION OF THE 



is to give a resume oi the methods of evaporating, which 

 is as follows : The fruit having been brought to the 

 "Dry-House" is there given out to the men, women 

 and children, who handle it. If for pared fruit it is 

 pared either by parers or by hand. The little machines 

 work well if the fruit is hard, but are of little use if the 

 fruit is soft, when the operator uses a common knife. 

 The next movement, after the peach has been pared, is 

 to cut it in half and remove the stone ; of course if you 

 are working on unpared, this is the first operation. 

 After this, the halves are laid close together in a single 

 layer on the wire trays. If the fruit is firm, put the stone 

 side down, because we want to dry the peach as flat as 

 possible, and this is the way the trade likes the fruit. If 

 the fruit is soft, you place the stone side up, or the peach 

 will stick, and much of its sugar will go off with the 

 juices. These are very important points in evaporating 

 the peach, and I believe with the stone side up, we get 

 more weight, provided we remove the fruit the very 

 moment it is done. Now, here is one of the peculiarities 

 of the consumers ; they want nice-looking, white fruit, 

 and if we dry the fruit at once, it comes out more or less 

 of a dark-brown color, but to prevent this the fruit is 

 exposed to the fumes of burning sulphur for from two to 

 three minutes, in a bleacher, an air-tight box, prepared 

 for the purpose ; or in some machines, they merely throw 

 a small quantity of sulphur into the furnace and let the 



