368 THE APPLE 



free juice into view in a freshly made cross section of it. The 

 general feel of the fruit, as it is handled, should be soft, velvety, 

 and leathery. 



Curing room. When a quantity of fruit is considered dry enough, 

 it is removed from the kiln and put in a pile on the floor of the 

 curing room. Every day or two the pile should be thoroughly 

 shoveled over to make the changes which take place uniform. 

 Thus managed, the pile in a few days will become thoroughly 

 homogeneous. The pieces that were too dry will have absorbed 

 moisture, the superfluous moisture of other pieces will have dis- 

 appeared, and the entire mass may be expected to reach the 

 condition above described. 



Waste. All waste, such as small apples, imperfect fruit, par- 

 ings, and trimmings, in the large evaporators is generally used 

 for vinegar stock. 



It is generally estimated that the waste from a given quantity of 

 evaporated apples will pay the cost of the fuel for evaporating that 

 quantity of fruit ; that is, putting it on a bushel basis, the waste 

 from a bushel will pay for fuel to evaporate both the white fruit 

 and the waste from that bushel. While in some instances, when 

 the price of such stock is low, this estimate may be too high, it 

 not infrequently happens that the waste more than pays for 

 the fuel. 



Proportion of evaporated fruit from a bushel of fresh apples. 

 An average weight of evaporated apples from a bushel of fresh 

 fruit is about 6\ pounds of white fruit and 3I pounds of waste. 

 When dried whole, they will make from j\ to 8] pounds of evapo- 

 rated fruit per bushel of fresh fruit. 



Grading and packing. Evaporated apples should be graded as 

 follows : 



Fancy. This is very white, clean stock free from all pieces of 

 skin and other objectionable portions, which should be removed in 

 trimming, and with a good proportion of the slices in rings. 



Choice. This denotes a grade intermediate between Fancy and 

 Prime, not quite clean enough for Fancy, yet more nearly free 

 from imperfections than the Prime grade demands. 



Prime. This must be good stock, well cured, and of a generally 

 attractive appearance. It must be comparatively white and shall 



