430 Curing Prunes. 
is hung upon four ropes with an incline; the prunes are thrown 
in the higher end, and by shaking it they roll down and fall 
through the holes into boxes underneath. The first piece of 
screen should be small, to let only stems and dirt through, and 
no prunes. This long hanging screen is also used to grade 
prunes after drying. There are now several excellent manufac- 
tured fruit graders on sale in this State. Their work is very sat- 
isfactory, and they have largely displaced home-made contriv- 
ances. 
The next step in the process is dipping in lye to thin and 
crack the skin, which facilitates the escape of moisture in the 
drying process. In a large caldron lye is made with one pound 
of concentrated lye to each twenty gallons of water, and kept 
boiling hot. The fruit is put into wire baskets or galvanized 
pails with perforated sides and bottoms, and dipped in the boil- 
ing lye for about a minute, or until the skin has a wrinkled 
appearance, then the basket is plunged into clean cold water to 
rinse off the lye. This rinsing water must be frequently changed, 
for it soon becomes very alkaline. Some begin with a stronger 
lye solution, one pound to ten gallons of water, claiming that a 
very short dip in stronger lye is better than longer exposure in 
a weaker solution. After this dipping, the prunes are placed 
on trays. In the sun the prune dries sufficiently in from one to 
two weeks, according to the situation and weather. 
A process of puncturing the skin of the prunes by causing 
them to roll over needle points has also been employed to some 
extent. There are now manufactured very capacious appliances 
for continuous dipping, rinsing, puncturing and spreading on the 
trays so that the fruit is handled in large quantities at a mini- 
mum cost. In no branch of our fruit industry perhaps has there 
been greater advance in labor-saving devices than in prune 
handling. 
When sufficiently dried, the prunes are put through the 
“sweat,” which takes from several days to two or there weeks, 
and then are ready for grading, finishing, and packing. In grad- 
ing, the prunes are separated by the use of a grader, as already 
described, into a number of grades, the largest, forty prunes to 
the pound, and so on, fifty, sixty, etc., to the smallest, which may 
run one hundred or more to the pound. Finishing consists in 
exposing to steam, in dipping in clear hot water, or hot sugar 
syrup, or in dipping in boiled juice of ripe prunes, or peaches or 
apples, etc. Although there is a great variety of materials used 
for “glossing” prunes by different producers. the prevailing prac- 
tise is to rely upon hot water, to which pure glycerine is added 
at the rate of one pound to twenty gallons. Some growers also 
add a little brine (having first dissolved the salt and skimmed 
