DEHYDEATION OF FEUITS AND VEGETABLES. 13 



Mr. HoEST. Yes, sir; I am going to tell you everything I know 

 about it. 



The process of doing this is very simple. It involves no patents 

 whatever — that is, the process itself involves no patent. There are 

 minor features of it, perhaps, affecting the cost of operation that 

 are covered by patents, but they can be utterly ignored, as they are 

 of no value whatever in the general proposition. The business is 

 very simple; there is no secret about it. The sum and substance of 

 the proposition is to dry the product quickly, and not too quickly, 

 and to use only air in doing it. And any plant by which the air is 

 run through the product in sufficient quantities will dry the product 

 in proportion to the water-carrying capacity of the air that is passed 

 through the product. In other words, if you take air at ordinary 

 humidity, say, about 75 per cent, there is the 25 per cent left for 

 water-carrying ability of the air, and at low temperature that water- 

 carrying capacity is very small, and you would have to drive enor- 

 mous quantities of air through the product, while by raising the 

 temperature to, say, 130'^, 140°, or 150°, you do absolutely no injury 

 to the product and you greatly increase the drying capacity of the 

 air. In other words, say, at 150° you dry roughly about 10 times as 

 fast as with air at 80°. I have not those figures in my mind, but I 

 have a memorandum here in my pocket from which I can get the 

 figures, if you care to liavo them. 



Senator Eansdell. Then there is a drying machine of some kind 

 that has to be used ? 



Mr. HoEST. You may call it a machine. It is simply a plant on 

 which you lay your product on a tray and blow air through it. 



Senator Eansdell. Practically, if I wanted to use it on my farm, 

 what would I have to do ? 



Mr. HoEST. You would have to get a blower and a steam coil and 

 a boiler, and heat the steam coil, and pipes to lead the air from the 

 blower into the room in which the products are contained. 



Senator Eansdell. You have a closed room to put them in. 



Mr. HoEST. You would have a closed room to put them in, and 

 by doing it on that plan, and by doing it quickly you avoid the 

 oxidization of the product ; you retain the original freshness in color 

 or substantially so, and you do your drying without the use of anji 

 sulphur or preservative. These samples that are on the table hert 

 are all the natural products without anything on them, and a product 

 that anybody can turn out equally well after he has had a very short 

 course of training. 



Senator Eansdell. What would be the cost of the simplest mecha- 

 nism or outfit that you could get up ? 



Mr. HoEST. You can get up a home dryer with which you can dry 

 celery tips and your odds and ends around the house. The Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture has been working on it; they have the plans, 

 and they know the cost better than I do. But it can not be more 

 than $20, I suppose. Of course you have not much capacity with 

 such an outfit. For practical business — ^that is, to run drying on a 

 scale such as it ought to be done in this country — ^you will need large 

 plants, and those plants ought to be distributed throughout the 

 United States in the agricultural districts to arrange for the different 

 products. 



