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20 per cent more drying room. With driers or associations handling 

 1,000 to 3,000 tons, as some of our Santa Clara associations do, this is a 

 most important consideration. 



One of our largest concerns, the Berryessa Fruit Growers' Union, 

 discarded the prickers after a fair trial, because they badly mutilated 

 the soft fruit — a very serious objection; and Mr. Righter, representing 

 another of our largest associations, the Campbell's Fruit Growers' Union, 

 has just told us that on no account would they give up their Cunning- 

 ham dippers for the new process. 



The saving of fuel and lye has been referred to, but this is a fallacy. 

 With a Cunningham dipper four men can handle 40 tons per day at a 

 cost of $5 for fuel and lye; but four men with a pricking machine cannot 

 handle 20 tons, the consequent loss for labor far exceeding the cost of 

 lye and fuel. 



The pricking boards do not last long, owing to the constant breaking 

 of the needles, and one firm alone had 250,000 needles broken last sea- 

 son. Now, what becomes of these needles? Many of them must remain 

 in the fruit and be eaten. Some fastidious people object to lye-dipped 

 prunes, because they fancy they can detect a flavor of lye; but this is an 

 error, as it all evaporates while exposed in the drying yard, and the 

 very small remnant that remains, we are told by Professor Hilgard, is 

 converted by the action of the sun into carbonate of soda, which is a 

 benefit, and not a detriment. I leave you to choose between this and 

 the flavor of dry fungus and highly tempered needle points which don't 

 evaporate or grow dull. 



The strongest advocates of this process admit the necessity of dipping 

 in districts where the black scale deposits its fungus, and as that is 

 prevalent in our principal prune districts, I don't see how we are going 

 to dispense with dipping unless we intend to compete with Turkish and 

 similar nasty fruit and restore to France the market for the better grades. 



I believe a pricking attachment to a Cunningham dipper can be made 

 so as to combine the good qualities of both, but clean water and plenty 

 of it must ever remain a most important factor in the production of 

 first-class prunes, and California should never export any other kind. 



Mr. Wilcox: I have used the pricking machine two years, and this 

 paper controverts all my experience and also the experience of Col. 

 Hersey. He received a letter saying that the prunes sold by him were 

 the best fruit on the market. 



Mr. Anderson, of Shasta: This season a neighbor of mine used a 

 pricking machine, and I noticed that he had from twenty to fifty " frog- 

 bellies " where he had one by the lye process. 



Mr. Adams: We all have to try. My experience has been different 

 from that of Mr. Anderson's neighbor. 



The Chair announced the subject for consideration to be: u Insect 

 Pests, Fungoid Diseases, and Remedies therefor;" also, "Introducing 

 and Fostering Parasitical Insects." 



