The Canadian Horticulturist 275 



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 together with strips of plank three 

 inches wide, and sufficient length to place them exactly three feet and 

 one fourth of an inch apart. 



These strips should be fastened to the side of the scantlings 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 scantlings 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 made of plastering laths 

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

 in the centre of thetravs, where 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 

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

 orator 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 heavy sheet iron or pieces of old stoves. 



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

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

 these walls rests the evaporator. 



There should be two or three openings, the size of a brick, left in the side walls 



near the ground, for the entrance of cold air, to drive the heat rapidly upward. 



Close these when necessary. Attach to the rear end of the furnace a stovepipe, 

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