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the spoon knife, but that is slow, tedious work and does not pay to cut 

 peaches with this spoon knife to dry them, it takes up^too much time unless 

 you can get the labor cheaper than I do. 



General Chipman: Will you explain what you mean by doctoring? 



Mr. Smith: I thought everybody knew what it was to doctor fruit. I 

 mean to put it through different kinds of processes — salt and sugar, and 

 all those kind of things, to make it look nice. The way to make dried 

 fruit nice is to keep it clean while you are at work on it; keep it out of the 

 dust and out of the dirt, and make your cutters keep their hands clean — 

 plenty of water while they are at work; if you see one with his hands dirty 

 make him go and wash his hands. At our place last year we used girls 

 and women cutting fruit. 



Mr. Chipman: Do you consider it any advantage to dip into glycerine 

 or anything of that kind; does it add a market value? 



Mr. Smith: So far as my experience goes there is no advantage in it; all 

 I can see, it adds to the looks of the fruit, and frequently sells best; it does 

 not add anything to the value of the fruit whatever for food, but it makes 

 the fruit sell better, and that is all the value there is in it. 



Mr. Hatch: Wouldn't it be well to use it on poor fruit and not on good 

 fruit, and do those who put up first class goods, after they have tried it, 

 use it any more on good fruit? 



Mr. Smith: No, I think not; as a rule it is used on poor fruit. I was 

 about to speak in reference to peeling peaches; this year's experience has 

 taught us that there is not enough difference between the price of peeled 

 and unpeeled peaches to pay for the peeling. Last year a great many of 

 us tried peeling peaches with lye; this year we all gave it up, and I do 

 not know a man in the Vacaville district that is peeling peaches this year 

 with lye; we got sick of it. The peaches would turn dark after they were 

 peeled and dried, and even after they were shipped to the East they would 

 turn dark in the boxes and very materially injure the sale of them, so they 

 all quit it, and in peeling this season used a knife and a machine. There 

 is a great difference in the varieties of peaches that are used to dry, that 

 is for profit; some varieties will make, I was going to say one third more 

 fruit than others, and that is quite an item for a person who is planting an 

 orchard to know what variety to plant if they are going to dry the fruit. 

 The Muir is one of the best drying peaches I know of. If I were selecting 

 an orchard of peaches where I expected to dry my fruit, I would plant 

 largely of that peach. The Susquehanna makes a finer article of dried 

 fruit than the Muir, but it dries away more, it takes more pounds of green 

 fruit to make one of dried than the Muir. The Muir is a perfect freestone, 

 very solid and very dry peach to begin with, consequently it dries away less 

 than any other peach I know of. In regard to drying our apricots there is 

 very little difference ; we pit them and put them in trays with the cut side 

 up, and lay them on carefully so that they will not more than touch one 

 another, put them into the sulphur box as quick as we possibly can, be- 

 cause, as you know, it commences to change its color almost immediately 

 after it is cut, and the quicker you get it into the sulphur box the quicker 

 you stop that discoloration and the better your fruit will be after it is dried, 

 and that will be one main point in drying fruit, it will be that much better 

 after it is dried; you let a dried fruit buyer come to your house, he takes up 

 one sample of it, that is too dark, he takes up another, "Very good looking 

 sample, I will give you so and so for that," and you will see it makes a 

 difference of several cents to you if you have it dried nice and sulphured 

 properly, and the riper you have it, so it won't run, the more transparent it 

 will be. We have a kind of a machine down there that we use for taking the 



