EVAPORATING FRUITS. 



187 



Florida, where, during the heat of the summer months, fruits 

 and vegetables are apt to be scarce. 



The farmer who owns one of these improved evaporators — 

 and the number is daily increasing, for there is no farm imple- 

 ment that will pay its cost so quickly, or so often in a season — 

 the farmer, we say, who owns one of these, can, during the season 

 of plenty, dry all his surplus peas, beans, sweet-corn, tomatoes, 

 potatoes, both sweet and Irish, turnips, beets, cabbages, ©r onions ; 

 it needs only then to tie them up in paper or close muslin bags 

 to " bar out " insects, and when needed for use, to soak them for 

 a few hours, and cook slowly. It is no light thing, as every 

 householder knows, to have fresh vegetables on hand at all 

 seasons. 



In this one respect alone, apart from all commercial consid- 

 erations, we cannot overestimate the value of these money and 

 labor savers. 



And the same is true of fruits ; in the season of plenty, 

 blackberries, strawberries, mulberries, huckleberries, plums, 

 peaches, pears, pine-apples, guavas, may be preserved for future 

 use with the greatest ease, and without the expense of glass jars, 

 cans, or sugar. 



In one season the ordinary farmer, curing for home con- 

 sumption only, can save double the cost of this busy little worker, 

 which has yet another popular qualification : it is cheap, far 

 cheaper than the vertical machines, which really destroy the 

 fruit rather than preserve it. 



There is a No. 6 size that will dry three bushels of, say, 

 guavas a day, weighs two hundred pounds, and costs 325 ; 

 then there is a No. 1, which evaporates six to eight bushels a 

 day, weighs three hundred and fifty pounds, and costs $50. 



Three larger sizes are made, designed for more extensive 

 w^ork : No. 2, costing $75, cures from 12 to fifteen bushels a day; 

 No. 3 costs $175, 'and evaporates forty-five bushels ; No. 4, which 

 weighs a ton, and swallows one hundred and ten bushels, costs 

 $350 ; and No. 5, made only to order, costing $450, and eating 

 up one hundred and fifty bushels at a day's meal. 



