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FRUIT-DRY ING 
Is a valuable and expedient method of stopping physical 
and chemical changes and extending under a convenient form the 
sale and the uses of fruits and of vegetables. 
In the height of the fruit season, much that should never be 
put on the market to compete with the higher-grade produce can 
with profit be disposed of as dried fruit. 
It is not meant to infer that a high-class dried fruit can be 
manufactured out of an inferior sample, but rather that it may be 
more profitable to convert such produce into a more readily saleable 
article. 
It may also happen that in the glutted market in the midst 
of the season even first-class fruits cannot be sold at a profit, 
and it then may be advantageous to hold them back and prepare 
them into some other commercial form. 
Drying affords a cheap-and-ready way of converting into a 
commercial commodity (which may be,stored and disposed of to the 
best advantage in due season) such quickly perishable products as 
ripe fruits. 
To those situated in remote localities beyond easy distance of 
markets or of the highways leading thereto, drying also offers a 
convenient way of utilising their bulky and perishable crops. 
Observation, experience, and such education as is conveyed by 
the mistakes of others have resulted in a variety of methods and 
practices being adopted when drying different fruits. The prin- 
ciples which underlie these methods are the same, but local con- 
venicnee, the cheapening of the handling, and the ultimate appear- 
ance and commercial value of the products turned ont have been 
the main causes of such modifications as the treatment of each kind 
of fruit suggests. 
Raisins 
is the name given grapes dried in the sun or by artificial evapora- 
tion. During that process the vine fruits loose a little over two- 
thirds of their weight, owing to the evaporation of the water they 
contain. 
In practice, however, Lexias, Sultanas and currants whieh are 
run through the stemmer and the grader, where stalks and small 
unmarketable fruit are eliminated, show a bigger shrinkage in 
weight; an amount ranging from 3% to 4 to 1, ie, it takes 314 to 
4 tons of the fresh fruit to produce 1 ton of marketable dried. 
Three main types of raisins are made :— 
1. The Muscat or Malaga type, of large size, which is again 
subdivided into Lexias or Pudding Raisins and Table 
Raisins. 
