DEHYDRATION OF FEUITS AND VEGETABLES. 21 



The Chairman. If this process is equal to its promise, perishable 

 products will be made nonperishable, and the summer will be 

 made perpetual and Nve will eliminate an enormous amount of waste. 



The CHAiKjrAN. We will now hear Mr. Sweet. 



STATEMENT OF ME. lOU D, SWEET, UNITED STATES FOOD ADMIN- 

 ISTRATION, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



The Chairmax. Please state your name, Mr. Sweet? 



Mr. Sweet. Lou T>. Sweet. 



The Chairman. And your present address. 



Mr. Sweet. Food Administration Building, Washington, D. C. 



The Chairman. We will be glad to hear any statement on your 

 part concernilig this process of dehydration of fruits and vegetables, 

 in your own way. You are at liberty to speak as appeals to you. 



Mr. Sweet. I was asked by Mr. Hoover in July to take up the sub- 

 ject of dehydrated vegetables and fruits. I began to collate the in- 

 formation I could get a hold of, first, from the United States Agri- 

 cultural Department, through the kindness of Dr. Alsberg, Dr. Gore, 

 and Prof. Corbett, and others, from whom I learned much, as Mr. 

 Horst has told you, about the English Government, particularly, 

 ordering the soup product for the Armj^ in South Africa during the 

 Boer war. That was made of about 40 per cent potatoes, 20 per 

 cent carrots, 20 per cent turnips, 10 per cent cabbage, and 10 per 

 oent ' onions, drying 100 pounds of the raw to about 15 pounds of 

 the dried. That was shipped to them in large quantities. Their 

 statement was that 100 pounds of the dried would make a soup 

 ration for about 6,000 soldiers, and five or six rations a week would 

 keep them in health. The Boer war closed suddenly and left him 

 with about 30,000 pounds of the products on hand. There was no 

 demand for it in Canada or the United States. He put it into bar- 

 rels sealed it up with paraffin and fifteen years, three months, and 

 some days after that, or after this present war had started, England 

 sent him another order. He opened those barrels and it looked all 

 right, and he shipped it and it proved all right. 



Since that time the Graham Products Co. (Ltd.), at Belleville, 

 Ontario; the Chilli wack Operating Co., at Chilli wack, British 

 Columbia, and the Dominion Products Co., of Vancouver, British 

 Columbia, have shipped up until about the 1st of December between 

 40,000,000 and 50,000,000 pounds of dried products, about 60 per 

 cent of it in the form of this soup product they call '' Julienne " and 

 about 40 per cent of the dried sliced potatoes. They require that this 

 product be put up in 15-pound tins, two tins to a case, and a good 

 strong case made for it, as they use it in all parts of the world where 

 they have their armies. 



They placed an order in November with the Dominion Products 

 Co. (Ltd.) for 4,000 tons, about 60 per cent of the soup product and 

 about 40 per cent of the dried sliced potatoes. In the United States 

 we found that the American Dehydrating Co., at Waukesha, Wis., 

 was one of the earlier companies making a product for the Hudson 

 Bay people, away up north, where their men needed vegetables to 

 keep them healthy ; next came the Wittenberg-King Co., of Portland, 

 Or-eg The Alaska boom started them making it up there. They 



