DEHYDEATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 23 



potatoes, and the consumption per capita the lowest, because of the 

 poor quality of our potatoes. 



Of our 442,500,000 bushels of potatoes, that the Government 

 states we raised last year, they also figure that only about 32 per 

 cent of that ever moves out of the country in which raised. They 

 also figure in Bulletin 47 that the consumption per capita of pota- 

 toes in the United States is about 2.6 bushels per capita. Potato 

 flour was made in Germany and shipped to this country prior to 

 the war. We are now beginning to make some potato flour in the 

 United States. Potato starch has been made in the United States 

 more or less from the cull potatoes, that being used by the manu- 

 facturers for sizing of textiles, not an edible starch. The reduc- 

 tion of dehydration of the weight of the various vegetables varies 

 with their water content, potatoes probably being from 100 pounds 

 down to 20 or as low as 16 or 17 pounds, while some of the other 

 vegetables will dry down to 8 pounds per hundred, according to 

 their water content. You would lose the peeling in the dehydra- 

 tion, but far less peeling by machinery than 3'ou would by hand. 

 The food of the potato, a large percentage of it, lies in that portion 

 next to the skin, and the potato that is smoothe, with the eyes flush, 

 by careful paring, would lose 5 to 15 per cent of the food ; if it is a 

 deep-eyed, rough, irregular shaped potato, would lose 30 to 60 

 per cent of the food, in the ordinary kitchen paring, while in the 

 paring by machinery it is done with a centrifugal parer, lined with 

 carborundum, which just wears the skin off. Dr. Gore, from the 

 Government, can tell you more about the mechanical end of it. 



The product sold in Canada to the English Government, the potato 

 price, put up in these packages at the seaboard, has run from 20 cents 

 to 32^ cents during the last three years; that is, in a large manufac- 

 turing way. In the United States, from the estimates we have of the 

 engineers who worked with us, we believe we are safe in making the 

 statement of 15 cents a pound, may be less than that, as compared to 

 their 20 to 324 cents. 



With the other vegetables, the cost of preparing them for the de 

 hydration is about the same as in canning; the labor expense neces- 

 sary to wash them, and peel them, and prepare them, and slice them 

 ready for the drier. The drying is a simple process of temperature 

 and humidity to gradually get the water content out, and, of course, 

 the. packing is mechanical, in the lumber, the tin, or the carton, as it 

 would prove better to do. 



Senator Ransdeia. Summarizing all you have said, what would you 

 make the average cost of the potatoes dried, as compared with the 



fresh potato? 



Mr. Sweet. If you took 100 pounds 01 potatoes at $1.50 a hundred 

 and o-ot 20 pounds dehydrated, the original cost would be $1.50 plus 

 the labor of preparing it and drying it and boxing it, the details of 

 which I do not know definitely. We have had it estimated by a num- 

 ber of engineers. „,„,•, . ,1, .■ • x ,, 



Senator Eansdell. But that does not answer the question at all. 

 These' potatoes would not be worth anything, like $1.50 out on the 

 farm where dried in the wholesale way. I was speaking about the 

 fellow in the city who used those potatoes and paid $1.50, whereas 

 bv this dehydrating process those potatoes are put up on the farm 

 where they are worth practically nothing, wasted by rot, fed to hogs, 



