22 DEHYDRATION OF PBTJITS AND VEGETABLES. 



make a very good product, shipping their products mostly to Alaska. 

 During the last six months there has been a wonderful awakening in 

 this country on dehydration. The Bureau of Chemistry, under 

 Dr. Alsberg and Dr. Gore, has made exhaustive study and tests of it. 

 There have been a number of patents granted to various people. 

 Some have been promoted, selling people their patent processes. 

 Little plants have started here and there, some of them making a 

 fairly good product and some not so very good. But during the past 

 five or six months there have been a number — some two or three — 

 that have made a product comparable to the fresh product. I mean 

 by that that as we take the fresh vegetables from the garden and 

 prepare them for our meal we have a delicious product, while if it 

 is shipped from the place where raised into the city, an average of 

 two or three days transpires probably before people use it, and those 

 vegetables are not what we would consider fresh and delicious vege- 

 tables. The dehydrated products, or the good products to-day, after 

 they have been dried and all the water taken out of them, can be 

 placed back in cold water and take on the moisture that they origi- 

 nally contained, or nearly that, and then be cooked, and we are unable 

 to tell the difference between those and the fresh vegetables. 



The Chairman. Would it not be possible, Mr. Sweet, in those 

 markets of the city where there is a great deal of waste in perishable 

 products to instill! these plants and save all of that? 



Mr. Sweet. Would it not be better for the plants to be erected 

 where the products were grown and sent :o the cities in the manu- 

 factured form? 



The Chairman. Oh, undoubtedly ; that is the idea I have, and that 

 is what I contemplated in the bill I have introduced but there is a 

 great deal of waste in the big city markets in all our vegetables, and 

 it occurred to me that you might install those plants at the markets 

 and work up what could not be sold. 



Mr. Sweet. The main point in fresh vegetables, as I see it, is thai 

 during the nonproductive season or winter season, with a dehydrated 

 vegetable, the people of the United States could get a product equal 

 to fresh vegetables, and they would he healthier, and I firmly believe 

 that the dehydration of fruits and vegetables is one of the grandest 

 developments that has come to the United States. 



Senator Eansdell. Have you made estimates as to the compara- 

 tive cost of these dehydrated vegetables, with the ordinary camied 

 vegetables, or vegetables in the form we usually get? 



Mr. Sweet. Oh, yes. 



Senator Ransdell. How would they compare ? 



Mr. Sweet. Just a moment 



Senator Eansdell (interposing). I am speaking now of the ulti- 

 mate consumer. 



Mr. Sweet. Potatoes will dry down to about one-fifth to one-sixth, 

 according to the quality of potato. The food in the potato is, of 

 course, the starch, the protein, and the mineral salts. In the very 

 high-class potato you will have a very high percentage of those in- 

 gredients, and the poorer quality, of course, correspondingly less, 

 and in the United States we have planted the cull potatoes, the little 

 ones so long, have overcropped our lands so long, that our pro- 

 duction per capita is the lowest of any countrjf in the world raising 



