301 
* By either of these processes the albumen and caseine of the fruit 
become sufficiently coagulated, and the tendency to fermentation and 
decay is arrested till the proper dryness is obtained. There is some 
nicety required in knowing the best degree of #ipetods of the fruit. It 
should be full and beginning to turn yellow before the plantain tree is 
eut down and the bunch gathered. The fruit then should be kept 
either on the balk or separated in a close dry place, as recommended in 
the Mexican plan, till the yellow of the rind has become black at the 
ends, with large spots over the surface, till on some sn those black ek 
: blue mould’ has begun to appear, and swarms of s grey flies hover 
over the heap, attracted, no doubt, by the saccharine aT and till the 
fruit yields to a slight pressure of the finger and is somewhat supple in 
this time, if some of the rind be removed, portions of the 
opaque yellow surface will appear as if melting. There should be no 
delay then in parboiling, or the fruit will be lost. If, on the other 
hand, the drying process is commenced too soon, a portion of the starch 
is still unconverted, and the dried fruit will be hard and want sweetness. 
This condition is easily discovered after the drying is completed, by the 
absence of a due amount of sistere M in *- fruit. To dry the fruit in 
boo f 
the sunshine a bam rame as use MD or a net, or any other 
contrivance by which the sun and a n play on them, is suitable. 
They must, however, be removed to misiier on the approach of rain or 
evening dews. In rainy weather the heat of an oven is crabe: but 
instead of dried, and the heat should be comfortably bearable by the 
hand, else the grape sugar will be caramelized, and the core z m fruit 
blackened and rendered bitterish. Tight close packin drums 
under considerable pressure, as with figs, would no doubt contribute 
materially to the preservation of dried ripe outs and bananas.’ 
Since Dr. pode time a great t advance has been made in drying 
fruit. What are called * American” fruit-drying macnines have been 
rendered so effective that little difficulty is experienced in drying the 
most succulent fruits in a few hours, and at the same time preserving all 
y 
It may be added mai the comparative loss of weight by evaporation 
h: tween apples and bananas, with the result that while 
apples yield only 12 per cent. of the original weight, bananas, with the 
skins removed, will give within a fraction of 25 per cent. of thoroughly 
desiccated fruit. Professor Church, with jh ih at Kew, obtained 
31°7 per cent. of dry matter from ripe ban 
In 1881, when samples of dried ripe bananas were forwarded to this 
country by the late Mr. W. B. Espeut, F.L.S., of Jamaica, Messrs. 
Fortnum, Mason, & Co. ., stated, * we are afraid they are not suited to the 
