358 
DRYING VEGETABLES. 
Tf fruit drying is, under the influence of West Australian 
autumnal climate, susceptible of being profitably carried out in 
the sun, the use of evaporators utilising direct fire heat should in 
many instances prove of great value to the market gardener. Tons 
of vegetables at periods of glut are hardly worth picking, packing, 
and forwarding long distances from the gardens in moister coastal 
districts to the distant inland, arid centres of population. In many 
parts of the Eastern Goldfields fresh vegetables are never seen, and 
an important field is yet open to our enterprising vegetable growers 
in catering for those centres, and supplying them with vegetables 
differing from the fresh article by being simply deprived of its 
watery portions, which amounts, according to kinds, from three- 
fourths to nine-tenths of the weight of the vegetables. 
In the first instance, surplus vegetables thus treated, would not be 
wasted and regarded by the grower as a loss of so much invested 
capital. They could be treated at any time of the year. The cost 
of dehydrating should be more than recouped by the very material 
reduction in carting and in railway freight; a perishable article 
subject to quick decay could be kept almost indefinitely and be sent 
over long journeys, when it could be used in small quantities at a 
time, and as required, and preserve unimpaired to the very last its 
taste and its succulent and refreshing, wholesome properties. When 
required for use it is only washed, then soaked for 12 to 24 hours in 
four to six times its weight of water, and then cooked as desired. 
Fruit Evaporator. 
Of evaporators a great many patterns are made; some hori- 
zontal, others upright. The charge is fed from underneath and the 
finished trays removed from the top. 
