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or apricots into the sulphur immediately after they are cut, just as quick 

 as it possibly can be done, I do not believe that the strength of the sulphur, 

 or the fumes of the sulphur, enter the fruit at all; I think it is simply on 

 the outside, and when it is taken out of the sulphur box and exposed to 

 the sun, after three or four or five days drying, that it all passes off. It 

 simply closes the pores of the fruit, as far as I am able to judge, and stops 

 that coloring of the fruit; it adds nothing to the value of the fruit for food; 

 it simply makes it sell better, and that is what we are all after. 



Mr. Booth: What process would you take in drying Salways and Late 

 George's whether you get them perfectly dried in the sun ? 



Mr. Smith: Yes, sir: we do. We dry our Salways at Vacaville as well 

 as we can the Crawford. 



Mr. Booth: Do you not cover them up at night to avoid dampness? 



Mr. Smith: Xo. sir; that is unless we have early fall or autumn rains, it 

 is not necessary; we have no dews or fogs there to color them. It only 

 takes from two to four days longer to dry, because the sun does not have 

 the same power later in the season that it does in midsummer. 



A Delegate: I would like to ask the genleman if he sulphurs the plums 

 that he dries ? 



Mr. Smith: Yes, sir; pitted and unpitted too. The finest I ever saw 

 was the Yellow Egg plum taken as they come from the trees and put in 

 the sulphur box and put in the sun to dry, the finest article of dried plum I 

 ever saw. A year ago last summer there were twelve evaporators erected in 

 Vaca Valley, and they were every one discarded before the season was out, 

 and the owners went to drying in the sun. Mr. Blum, a merchant in Vaca- 

 ville. that bought four or five hundred tons this year, preferred sun-dried 

 sulphured fruit to any other kind of fruit he could get. He will pay more 

 for it and take it quicker and in preference to the evaporated fruit. I 

 made the remark here last night that a man must study his own locality. 

 If he is in the foggy portion of the State where he does not have sufficient 

 sun he had better use an evaporator, but in such portions of the State 

 as this and almost all parts in the interior of this State, away from the 

 bay and ocean fogs, I see no use in using an evaporator of any kind, because 

 in my judgment, and it is so considered in the estimation of many buyers, 

 sun-dried fruit is superior to the evaporated, that is, both being sulphured. 

 All buyers I know of insist upon fruit being sulphured. 



Mr. Gray: I would like to call Mr. Smith's attention to one thing. He 

 said that after the last dipping it would remain in the pile until packed. 

 That might occasion a great loss to many young fruit driers, for I under- 

 stand that during the night is the time when the moth will work on the 

 fruit: that they may not touch the fruit in the daytime, but they will dur- 

 ing the night, unless sulphur fumes or something else keeps them away. 



Mr. Smith: Thank you: it calls my attention to one point that slipped 

 my mind. In dipping the fruit, when we are preparing the boxes as I say, 

 we throw it up in bulk so it will dry out evenly the whole mass — five hun- 

 dred pounds, or five tons for that matter, whatever you expect to box: you 

 dip it and pile it up that way, and it will moisten the whole mass alone, 

 because the dry pieces will take the moisture from the damper ones, and 

 in the morning — about ten or twelve hours — the whole mass will be moist- 

 ened up just about alike. To avoid insects coming along at night and lay- 

 ing eggs, we cover it up with old sheets or muslin, so that the moth cannot 

 get to it. or she would come along during the night and lay eggs in the 

 fruit again and we would unconsciously box up a lot of eggs which in 

 time would result in the destruction of our fruit. 



