258 



EVAPORATION OF FRUIT. 



[Dec. 1895. 



would not pay to pick them at the prices current, and gent away 

 in bags and old brimstone barrels for some purposes not divulged. 

 Keally good apples did not make three farthings a pound until 

 the end of October; and although prices subsequently improved, 

 they remained very low and unsatisfactory to producers. Dam- 

 sons were in sonie places either left on the trees or sold in the 

 wholesale central markets at absurdly low rates, ranging from 

 Sd. to 4<d. per gallon, which did not much more than pay the 

 expenses of picking, packing, carriage, and commission, and yet 

 retailers were asking from 8c?. to Is. per gallon in many towns. 

 Numerous housekeepers in all classes of life would have been 

 pleased to be able to purchase such useful fruit at anything 

 like 8d. per gallon, which would have given a good profit to 

 growers after carriage had been paid, even over long distances. 

 These remarks apply equally to apples, to those shaken from 

 the trees, as cited above, and to the many thousand bushels of 

 cooking apples — Keswicks, Lord Suffields, and others equally 

 valuable— sold at a loss, or at an infinitesimal profit. To a great 

 extent this is due to ina.dequate distribution, which more or less 

 affects all farm produce, but fruit farmers especially, as fruit 

 is only grown extensively in certain counties, from which dis- 

 tribution to all parts of the country is difficult and costly. 

 Besides, there is not much endeavour on the part of the fruit- 

 grower to make use of other means for the disposal of sur- 

 plus fruit. As a rule, he has no other mode than packing 

 it just as it comes from the tree in bushel and half -bushel 

 baskets, and consigning it to some large market, or he sells 

 his fruit on the trees by auction or private contract to 

 get rid of the trouble and risks. In the case of apples, in 

 a year of profusion, surplus fruit is not made into cider in 

 the.^e days. Fifty or sixty years ago, in many of the fruit- 

 producing districts, there was a cider press on most fruit farms 

 of any size, and a pleasant drink was made for the labourers 

 from the common and surplus apples. No attempt is now made 

 to make it, except in the cider-making counties, though the 

 science and practice of making cider and its after treatment 

 have greatly improved^ and its sale as a beverage has been 

 widely extended. It would assuredly pay to make cider of the 

 surplus apples in years of superabundance, and, in ordinary 

 seasons, to sort the fruit-^" grade " it, as the Americans J?ay — 

 and make the " thirds " into cider, or pulp it, or evaporate it. 



In foreign countries, large quantities of fruit are dried 

 and preserved either by solar or artificial heat. Plums and 

 prunes are dried on the continent by the sun and by artificial 

 heat. In the United States, vast quantities are dried, or 

 dessicated, b}^ means of stoves, and in sunny California by the 

 sun, and by evaporating machines, not only in seasons of 

 abundant crops, but as a regular part of the fruit-growers' busi- 

 ness. Apples, also, are dried in various forms upon stoves and 

 evaporators in many otlier parts of America. Hitherto, nothing 

 has been dojii' in this direction in (Jreat Britain. Enormous 



