308 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Other Charges. — Salesmen's commission varies from 7J to 
10 per cent, on the price realised, with weekly settlements, or 
otherwise by arrangement. 
The charges for stalls or stands in markets differ greatly, as 
also do the tolls charged on produce taken into them for sale. 
Preserving Fruit. 
The erection of suitable buildings, purchasing necessary 
machinery, and providing labour for preserving fruit on a large 
scale, requires a considerable expenditure of capital, and is an 
investment needing the most careful consideration. In a smaller 
way £50 to £100 will provide the needful boilers, &c., for the 
utilisation of the surplus fruit from a large area to be pulped or 
converted into jam. One ton of fruit and 15 cwt. of sugar will 
produce 1^ tons of jam, saleable in jars at £30 to £50 a ton, 
according to kind and quality. Some mixed jams are sold as low 
as £20 a ton. The expenses to be counted against this are interest 
on capital sunk in buildings and machinery, an allowance for 
depreciation, cost of the fruit, sugar, fuel, labour, and jars, though 
the latter, being usually charged separate and returnable, may 
be included in capital expenditure. One of the largest and best 
factories has from ten to twenty steam pans in use, each of 
which can turn out 1 cwt. of jam in a few minutes, so that 40 or 
50 tons are prepared each day. In this case only white Dutch 
crushed sugar is used. 
Drying or Evaporating Fruit. 
This, though extensively carried out in America for Apples, 
is but little adopted Avitli us, and, unless it can be applied pro- 
fitably to such fruits as Plums, it is not likely to pay. Where 
green Apples are valued at Gd. to Is. a bushel it is a different 
matter ; but in Britain the market must be very low if they will 
not sell for 2s. (jd. or 3s. a bushel, and this is as much as the 
dried fruit will bring. The evaporating apparatus is sold in 
various forms and sizes, at prices ranging from £5. 5s. to £50, 
which will dry respectively from 5 to 50 bushels of Apples a day. 
A ])ushel of green Apples will yield, after paring, coring, and 
slicing, ()\ lbs. of dried fruit, and costs about (jd. to dry, or 1 lb. 
of coal is expected to produce 1 lb. of dried fruit. The labour 
must bo reckoned in addition. The subject of fruit-drying was 
