The Canadian Horticulturist. 



207 



HOME-MADE FRUIT EVAPORATOR. 



ONSTRUCT a frame-work of scantlings, the edges of which 

 should be dressed so that all the scantlings will be exactly 

 the same width. Cut them four feet long and fasten to- 

 gether with strips of plank three inches wide and of suffi- 

 cient length to place them exactly three feet and one-fourth 

 of an inch apart. 



These strips should be fastened to the side of the scant- 

 lings near their ends. Make seven of such frames and 

 place them two feet apart, and fasten together by nailing on the ends of the 

 scantlings strips of plank for plates and as wide as the scantling, and twelve 

 feet two inches in length. Side up with weather-boarding, or what is much better, 

 flooring, shiplap or boxing, which should be placed on perpendicularly. At each 

 end there should be a door. 



The roof should be made in the ordinary way, except a vent at the top two 

 inches wide the entire length of the evaporator. A trough-like covering should 

 be made for this opening and placed one inch above the roof. Strips of mould- 

 ing to support the trays should be tacked to the inner edge of the studding. 

 These strips should be at least one-half an inch thick and not more than one 

 inch in width. Begin six inches above the lower end of the studding and tack 

 these strips three inches apart. 



The trays or frames upon which the fruit is to be placed should be just two 

 by three feet and one inch in depth. The tray frames should be made of strips 

 one inch square. The bottom of the trays should be m.ade of plastering laths 

 two feet in length. They should be placed about one-fourth of an inch apart, 

 except in the centre of the trays, where there should be a vacancy of two inches to 

 give proper ventilation. 



The laths at each end of the tray should have their outer edge dressed, and 

 they should be placed on in such a way as to to give the tray a play endwise in 

 the evaporator of one-eighth of an inch. There should be seventy-two of these 

 trays. 



The evaporator, when completed, should be placed over a furnace of stone 

 or brick, made similar to a Sorghum evaporator furnace. 



Dig a trench ten feet long and as deep as • desired for a fire-pit, and wide 

 enough when lined with brick or stone to be fifteen inches from wall to wall. 

 Cover the front end of the furnace with a wide flat stone, and the remainder of 

 the furnace with of heavy sheet iron or pieces of old stoves. 



Around this furnace build walls two feet high. The distance between the 

 side wall should be three feet, and that of the end walls twelve feet. Upon 

 these walls rests the evaporator. 



