AMERICAN FRUIT-EVAPORATORS AND EVAPORATING. 587 



especially for family use, and is so constructed as to be usable a S 

 a fruit-evaporator, or, by a simple contrivance, as a baking-oven. 

 It is large enough to dry from three to five bushels of apples per 

 day, or to bake eight to ten loaves of bread at a time. It is 

 4 feet high, 2G inches wide, and 2 feet from back to front. It 

 is supplied with six galvanised wire trays, on which the fruit is 

 evaporated, the drying surface being rather more than 20 square 

 feet. In appearance this dryer is much like an ordinary stove. 

 At the bottom is the furnace in which coal or wood can be used 

 as fuel. The smoke is carried off by a pipe at the back of the 

 dryer. Above the furnace is the evaporating-chamber, and the 

 admission of air is regulated by dampers. The air is heated by 

 contact with the furnace, then passes among the fruit, &c, and 

 out through a covered chimney at the top of the chamber ; thus 

 there is a continuous upward current, which in the larger dryers 

 is increased by so connecting the smoke-pipe with the ventilating- 

 pipe that the ascending current from the furnace helps the 

 upward draught. The drying-trays rest upon ledges fixed on 

 the sides of the drying or hot-air chamber. 



The dryer No. 2, which is double the capacity of No. 1, and 

 5^ feet high, is both dryer and baker. Its cost is £10. 10s. 

 This is the size most generally sold for private use. It will dry 

 from five to seven bushels of apples per day. No. 3 (fig. 

 35) is a larger apparatus, stands 6 feet high, 38 inches wide, 

 37 inches deep, has twenty-four wire trays, 15 inches by 24 inches, 

 supplying 85 square feet of drying surface. The drying space is 

 divided into two chambers, the smoke-pipe being carried up 

 between them. It will dry about double the quantity of fruit 

 that No. 2 will dry. Its price is £21, This is the size in most 

 general use for drying fruit for market on a moderate scale. 

 The larger sizes, Nos. 4 and 5, are called " factory dryers," or 

 evaporators. No. 4 will dry from twenty to thirty bushels of 

 apples per day, and costs £35. No. 5 will dry from thirty-five to 

 fifty bushels per day, and costs £52. It is the same size as No. 4, 

 but differs from it in being fitted with a mechanical contrivance 

 called an elevator, by means of which the racks or drying-trays 

 are gradually lifted from the bottom to the top of the drying- 

 chamber, whereas in all the other sizes the trays are stationary. 

 The arrangement for the admission of hot air in No. 5 is some- 

 what different from that in the other sizes, and the makers state 



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