7 6 



Preparation of Prunes. 



used consists of a series of sieves, with perforations of various 

 sizes, placed on a high platform, to which the fruit is lifted 

 by an endless roller hoist ; the fruit passes from one sieve to 

 the other until it finds perforations through which it can pass, 

 when it drops through into the proper receptacle, which is 

 made with a, trap door at the bottom, and balanced on a lever 

 of a given weight, so that when the weight of plums (say 

 25 lb.) has dropped into it the door opens and the plums fall 

 into baskets and are taken away for preparation. 



The preparation is mostly done after the plums are packed. 

 There are two processes — viz., steam and dry heat. The 

 best plums are packed by hand in glass jars. Inferior plums 

 which are to be packed in boxes are placed in large closed 

 zinc cylinders, about a yard long and 6 inches in diameter. 

 The glass bottles and the cylinders are then closed and taken 

 to the boilers. The jars or the cylinders are packed into 

 these huge copper cauldrons, which are then tightly closed 

 and steam is introduced until the heat reaches 212 deg 

 Fahr. and over. The fruit is kept at this temperature for 

 four or five hours and even longer, when the jars are taken 

 out, cleaned, labelled, and packed in cases for export 



When the cylinders are opened the fruit is taken out and 

 packed in poplar-wood boxes, into which it is tightly 

 pressed by leverage, the bottom layer having previously 

 been neatly laid in a regular pattern by hand. The bottom 

 then becomes the top, and the box, when opened, appears 

 neat and dainty. The system of preparing the box fruit in 

 cylinders is, however, going out of use, and the fruit is 

 now more often packed into the poplar-wood boxes before 

 preparation, and then placed in a large brick drying-room 

 and exposed to the same degree of dry heat as the jars 

 and cylinders in the steam cauldrons. Having been so 

 heated for four or five hours, the plums are considered to be 

 able to stand any climate or temperature. 



The wages of persons employed in the plum factories in 

 the country are for women is. 2jd., and for men 2s. 3d. per 

 diem, while at Bordeaux they are about 2s. and 3s. 2d 

 respectively, but women who can place the plums artistically 

 in the bottles earn higher wages than the others. 



