210 ORANGE CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 



wrapped in paper when deposited in the chests in which they 

 are packed. Hundreds of women are engaged throughout this 

 busy season cutting the oranges into quarters and stripping the 

 peel, this work being done with surprising celerity. Steam ma- 

 chinery cuts the peel into thin shreds, which issue from the 

 cutter in myriads of slices, marvelously fine, with a refreshing 

 bouquet. The pulp, or interior portion of the orange, is scalded 

 and passed through a sieve, also worked by steam power. The 

 pips and particles of skin alone are rejected. This machinery 

 is admirable, and the mode by which the useless portions fine 

 and small as are the pips and skin are separated from the 

 pulp, testifies to the perfection to which modern appliances have 

 been brought by inventive genius. The peel and pulp are then 

 mixed and removed to the boiling room. We ascend from the 

 ground floor to the boiling room, which is in the upper story. 

 This light, spacious and convenient apartment contains forty 

 copper pans, shining like burnished gold, and each capable of 

 boiling one and one-half hundred weights of marmalade or jam. 

 The stirring is done by machinery, a complete mechanical ar- 

 rangement for this operation being driven by a small and hand- 

 some new engine. On the floor beneath the marmalade is put 

 into pots by females, who fill the vessels as fast as they are 

 brought to them, from a trough or receiver containing the pre- 

 serve. The pots and jars are then stacked away on trays until 

 cold, when they are covered, tied over, labeled and packed." 



