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table; that is, making three grades as it is taken from the trees; and when 

 the fruit is three or four inches deep on the table, a boy or two will rub 

 it back and forth around the table, the dust going through; the fruit is 

 then very easily scooped right into the sacks, which are hooked on the 

 sides of this table, and it is sacked much easier than when it is cleaned 

 with the cylinder, and dumped and shoveled up, although in that way 

 they may get a little more dust out. 



Mr. Smith: If the gentleman took me to say that apples could not be 

 sulphured, he misunderstood me. What I intended to say was that the 

 apple should not be sulphured as much as the other fruits ; if you sulphur 

 as much the sulphur will penetrate the apple and soon spoil it, but properly 

 done you can benefit the apple as well as any other fruit. The pear you 

 would sulphur, if anything, less than the apple; it will take less sulphur 

 to show on it than any fruit I know of. In sulphuring fruit of any kind 

 a person must know something of the strength of the sulphur he is using, 

 for there is a great deal of difference in the strength of it; some sulphur 

 that you buy is as strong again as others, and would not require more than 

 half as much, but after burning it a few times you can readily tell and get 

 an idea of about how much to use on any kind of fruit. A gentleman 

 asked me if the reason the apple and pear take less sulphur is not because 

 they are sliced thinner than other fruit. That may be so to a certain extent, 

 but the flesh is porous and open and the sulphur enters more readily than 

 with the peach or other fruit. 



Mr. Gray: After covering the dried fruit with a sheet or sacking, I 

 believe that the moths will find their way into the sacks, or even through 

 some sacks. I think by having a tight room in which you are packing 

 your fruit, and burning a little sulphur in that room, it will not affect the 

 fruit and moths will not enter; you will be sure of keeping them out, while 

 if you depend on throwing sacks over them they are bound to come in 

 around the edges. 



Mr. Wilcox: I had a ton of green pears subjected to the sulphuring 

 process last year by way of experiment, and I found that after they had 

 been sulphured and evaporated in an evaporator, that I could not eat them 

 myself. I brought the matter before the State Horticultural Society last 

 year, and Professor Hilgard has the matter under consideration now, as to 

 whether so much sulphur is deleterious, and the matter will be reported 

 upon pretty soon in that society. Experiments have been made in my 

 county, where the most of the prunes are grown at the present time, with 

 the Petite prune by sulphuring, and as I visited the fruit driers to study 

 the matter, I was surprised at the effect of the sulphur. The sulphured 

 Petite prune has the appearance of the Oregon Silver prune. The prunes 

 were dipped in lye and put out immediately into the sulphuring box and 

 then taken out of that to the field — it is an important matter not yet 

 decided what we want of the prune — the prune which we want to develop; 

 we want to produce all the prunes in this State that are used in the United 

 States; we are spending millions of dollars annually to bring foreign prod- 

 ucts to this country, and are using an immense deal of it. We know we 

 can raise a good prune, but some things we do not know yet. We do not 

 know whether we want a black prune such as they bring from France; we 

 are inclined to think that the Americans prefer the lighter colored prune; 

 still some of our growers have sent their prunes to San Francisco this year 

 and paid half a cent a pound to have them present the color and appear- 

 ance of the French prunes. I am aware that those prunes are said to sell 

 for higher prices, and it places us in rather an embarrassing position to- 

 determine what to do, to secure the best price for our fruit. Our prune 



