AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 369 



that by such rude means only enough was preserved by each 

 family for their own use. At the west, where apples and peaches 

 grow in such luxuriant abundance as to be utterly valueless in a 

 grain state, a very rude kiln is in common use. They are built 

 in this way : parallel walls of stone are built about a foot high, 

 and covered with flat stones, the joints plastered with clay, and 

 the flues between the walls connected at one end with a short 

 chimney, to carry off the smoke of the fires built at the other 

 end. Upon these flat stones, when heated, the fruit is spread 

 until dry. I have known these kilns built, where there were no 

 stones, all of clay. A smooth log is laid down, as a mold for the 

 flue, and the clay built over it, and then it is withdrawn, and so 

 on a succession of flues, w^hich are all covered and smoothed off 

 on the top, and thereon the fruit is placed to dry. It is some- 

 times badly burnt. 



There is another rude kind of drying kiln at the west. A 

 wooden house, say six feet square, has such a flue as I have de- 

 scribed, or a stove with the mouth open on one side of the house, 

 for convenience of firing, with the pipe or flue carried out on the 

 opposite side. This heats the air on the inside of the house very 

 hot. Then one side of the house is filled with drawers that pull 

 out like a bureau. These are made only two inches deep, with 

 basket-worked bottoms to hold the fruit and let the hot air pass 

 through. This plan is better than the kilns I described, but 

 not perfect. The North American Phalanx in New-Jersey had a 

 drying kiln built in the form of a large brick chiimiey, with draw- 

 ers in three stories of the building, that operated very well in 

 drying fruit, green corn, beans, okre, and other vegetables, but 

 the mistake in its formation was that it was not open at the top 

 to create a draught and carry off the moisture. If such a chim- 

 ney were very tall, with the heat in an oven at the bottom to 

 heat the air drawn in from outside, I think fruit would dry very 

 rapidly. Any and every farmer can have one of these drying 

 flues; and where fuel is cheap and fruit plenty, I have no doubt 

 that the profit would be very large. It is worth trying. There 

 is another plan of building a drying chimney that may be more 

 effectual than one with an open top, and that is the plan adopt- 

 ed in some foundries to dry the wet-clay work of cores used in 

 casting. There the current of heated air is introduced at the top 

 and draws downward and escapes at the bottom. But after all 

 I do not thinlj: that we have arrived at the true way of drying 

 [Am. Inst.] 24 



