Popular Science Monthly 



701 



actually tasted fresher and better than the 

 green stuff she was accustomed to purchase 

 at her grocer's. That's just the key note 

 of the new method. The spinach given to 

 the housekeeper was dried inside of eight 

 hours from the time it was picked, while 

 that bought at provision stores is anywhere 

 from two to ten days old and hence fre- 

 quently stale. 



Furthermore, the developers claim that 

 products dried according to their system, 

 can, in large quantities, be sold at a lower 

 price than the actual retail market price 

 of green vegetables. They are of the 

 opinion that fresh vegetables will be for- 

 midable competitors of the dried products 

 only in fat years. At such times, however, 

 vegetables are purchasable at a low figure 

 and the surplus will in all probability be 

 dried to maintain a general balance in the 

 green foodstuff market. 



Wastes Can Be Utilized 



Among the many products which are 

 being successfully dried at present, and 

 which otherwise would go to waste, are 

 potato culls — that is, potatoes which have 

 been injured in digging and therefore are 

 below market standards. At least ten per 

 cent of the potato crop falls into this class. 

 This percentage is now being dried and 

 converted into potato flour. 



Windfalls in fruits offer another im- 

 portant field for conservation. The market 

 usually insists upon hand-picked 

 fruit. . The loss in this respect 

 alone, is said to amount to more 

 than fifty per cent of the total 

 growth. Windfalls are being 

 dried at the present time so 



^ 



that they can be used in many ways. 

 Powdered dry orange is as fragrant as the 

 fresh fruit. So, also, are a number of other 

 fruit flours. 



A pound of dried mixed vegetables made 

 up of carrots, turnips, onions, cabbage and 

 potatoes, prepared especially for soup, is 

 sufficient for sixty or more adults. A 

 barrel of the same vegetables weighing one 

 hundred pounds, provides enough soup 

 stock for nearly six thousand persons. The 

 raw vegetables which go to make up this 

 mixture, before drying fill thirty barrels 

 and weigh in the neighborhood of one 

 thousand, five hundred pounds. 



The food ratio between the dried and 

 the original green vegetables is as follows: 

 Potatoes, I pound to 7; cabbage, i to 18; 

 onions, i to 13; spinach, i to 14; carrots, 

 I to 12; and turnips, i to 13. 



I dropped a few slices of dried onion 

 into a glass of water; the slices were 

 about the thickness of a postage stamp. 

 In less than an hour they had absorbed 

 enough water to assume the size, shape 

 and odor of the original onion slice. Strips 

 of carrots, after they had been soaked, 

 regained their original shape and became 

 as firm as the fresh vegetable. Spinach 

 which looked like pressed flowers, bloomed 

 into a brilliant green after a few minutes 

 in water, each leaf intact with its network 

 of raised veins as if it had just been gathered 

 from the field. No inferiority could be 

 detected in the flavor of these vegeta- 

 bles. . . . 

 Drying establishments have already 

 been 'erected and are now in operation 

 at Middle River, California; Webster, 

 New York, and Bound Brook, New Jersey. 



The bottles and glass tanks at right of photograph contain an amount of water 

 equal to that which was extracted from the dried vegetables at the left 



