The Canadian Horticulturist. 309 



EVAPORATING FRUIT. 



HE orchardist must be prepared to utilize the greatest amount of 

 fruit possible and place it upon the market in salable form if it 

 cannot be sold in its fresh state. I have found evaporating the 

 best way of handling second quality apples, and in most years all 

 early fall fruit. Fruit should be evaporated before it becomes 

 over-ripe and soft. The expense of preparing apples for evaporat- 

 ing depends greatly on the size and condition of the fruit, whether 

 badly bruised and soft or not. The fruit I evaporate is near!y all grafted fruit 

 and averages 6 lbs. to the bushel. A lot of natural fruit will average only about 

 4 lbs. to the bushel. Baldwins and Greenings 6 to 7, Russets, 8. My average 

 expense for evaporating and boxing has been 3^c. per lb. after getting fitted 

 up, or 20c. per bush. About loc. is an average price at wholesale for evapor- 

 ated apple, one year with another. There is usually too great a difference 

 between the wholesale and retail prices, the retail being nearly double the 

 wholesale. 



I use an American evaporator intended for bleaching the apple in the eva- 

 porator, which is wrong, as it necessitates having it in the fumes of the sulphur 

 all the time it is drying. The apple should be bleached for five to eight minutes 

 in a separate place made for it, as soon as it is cut and spread on the trays, and 

 then put immediately into the evaporator. Treated thus there will be no com- 

 plaint of smell or taste of sulphur in the apple. Perhaps the expense of evapo- 

 rating in some localities would be different from mine, from prices of labor, fuel, 

 etc. I employ five persons, (usually females) to prepare the apples at 60c. per 

 day each, and one man to attend the evaporator at $1. This help averages a 

 trifle over 150 lbs. per day. Fuel (wood) costs $3, prepared. With apples that 

 take a longer time to dry, it is necessary to remove a part to keep the help em- 

 ployed. In this way it is necessary to have extra trays on which to set aside 

 partly-dried apples for attention later. Three trays can be emptied on to one. 

 This is better than to put it into boxes to be spread on trays again, and the apple 

 looks better. A person must not expect to get rich rapidly evaporating apples, 

 although it pays well in some seasons, but when one has a large lot of apples 

 that will hardly pay for marketing, it is quite a consolation to know that he c^a 

 use them independently of the market, and get a fair profit from them. 



I consider it a safe rule to evaporate all apples that are not worth, at my 

 home, more than $1 per barrel, without barrel. If one is buying apples to evapo- 

 rate he should be cautious about getting a great quantity ahead of the parer. 

 One week is as long as they should be kept, unless they are all hard, late-keeping 

 varieties. I am raising a great quantity of apples and should think I was losing 

 a large share of my profits without an evaporator. 



Some varieties are at times very scabby which unfits them for keeping well 



