351 
They are then placed in proper boxes and pressed hard by 
means of a lever or screw press so as to set them well in a mass, 
and exclude insects which prey upon dried fruit. 
Where a community of vine-growers is engaged in the fruit 
drying, the work of processing the dried crop, cleaning, grading, 
and packing, is better and more expeditiously done at a central 
packing shed run on co-operative lines, where a more even and 
better marketable article is turned out. 
Cost of drying Raisins and Currants from vine to sweat- 
boxes vary naturally with facilities for handling and management. 
Under ordinary conditions it is claimed to be about £5 per ton in 
the “Vrai evaporators” or some other efficient evaporator, to about 
£7 10s. when sun-dried in the River Murray district of Victoria 
and South Australia; this estimate being based on pre-war cost. 
Besides the certainty of drying in a good class of evaporator, there 
is also a lesser deterioration in weight caused by fermentation, and 
depreciation in value resulting from infection of flies, moths, dust, ete. 
SEEDLESS RAISINS 
are the produce of the Currant vines, the Sultana vines, or small and 
imperfectly developed Museatel grapes, which now and then are 
found on muscatel bunches. When dried, these small raisins are 
separated in the grader, and sold as “seedless muscatels.” For cook- 
ing purposes, seedless raisins are in better demand than the seeded 
lexias or pudding muscatels, and in order to meet the demand for 
that class of article, small and inexpensive raisin seeders are sold 
for a few shillings, which can be clamped to the corner of the kitchen 
or pantry table, and neatly extract the seeds from the raisins. 
TaBLE RaIsINns. 
The drying of Table raisins and of Currants is effected much 
after the fashion of pudding raisins, with the difference that they 
do not undergo the dipping process, which spoils the appearance 
and removes the bloom. : 
Great care should be taken in picking, for this reason, not to 
remove the bloom, which would spoil the appearance of the raisin. 
The bunch is handled by the stem, cut with a sharp knife, all im- 
perfect berries, pieces of stalk, dead leaves removed, and then 
placed upon either shallow baskets or directly upon the trays right 
side up, i.e., the side showing less of the stem. In large vineyards 
there is economy in placing the trays between the rows of vines 
and covering them ‘at once with grapes, whereas on a small vineyard 
it may be convenient to take them all to the drying terrace. 
The finest bunches having been carefully picked as described, 
they are simply put on wooden trays made 2ft. wide and 3ft. long. 
