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blade at the point. Unlike the spoon-shaped knife, whicih can only 
be used on soft fruit, it answers for both soft or firm fruit. 
Like apricots, peaches after being cut in half are placed on 
travs, with the cut side up and fumigated for two hours only, the 
cup filling with juice, and then dried in the sun or the evaporator 
Knives for pitting Clingstone Peaches and soft fruit. 
at the same temperature as the apricot. The drying is stopped 
while the fruit is quite pliable, when it is tied in calico bags and 
stored in cool, dry places, until ready to pack. 
It takes 5lbs. of apricots, 4 or Slbs. of dry fleshed peaches, 
and 5 to 7lbs. of more juicy peaches to 1lb. of dried fruit. 
PRUNES AND PLUMS. 
Plums are dried for stewing, they are cut open and pitted. 
Prunes are dried with the stone. Being a fruit of firm texture and 
not easily bruised, the labour of hand-picking is generally dispensed 
with. 
The fruit is allowed to hang until dead ripe and they fall from 
the trees, when these are lightly shaken; the last crop has to be 
gathered by hand, and is generally used for a second quality. 
They are graded before drying, either in some home-made grader, 
consisting of a long chute with three different sizes of wire screen 
on it, or they run through some grading maehine of which several 
patterns are used. Unless properly graded, of the one size for each 
