STORING AND PRESERVING OF FRUIT. 



117 



contrivance to evaporate a quantity of plums for home consump- 

 tion. I have found a paraffin or gas stove with an oven answer 

 the purpose excellently. Mr. Philip Crowley, chairman of the 

 Fruit Committee of the R.H.S., has also found that he can dry 

 plums in his kitchen oven by placing them on trays after the 

 cooking for the day is over and the heat is gradually subsiding. 

 They are left in all night, and the process repeated for three 



Fig. 9. 



nights in succession. This gives exactly the same process as 

 that adopted in prune drying in France, plums being much 

 better when dried and allowed to cool two or three times than 

 when done at one operation. Some of the plums dried by Mr. 

 Crowley in this way when soaked in water and cooked were fully 

 equal to French prunes. It is not, however, all varieties of plums 

 that are suitable for this process. Tender skinned varieties 



