488 
Fruit Evaporation in America. 
EnglisK farmer. Tenancy for rent is practically unknown in 
America, although men sometimes let some of their land upon 
the " Metayer," or share- of- profits system. The farmer is always 
a freeholder, and the farms are small. More than half of those 
in Massachusetts, for example, are between twenty and one 
hundred acres in extent. The greater part of the remaining 
half are smaller, while there are very few properties containing 
more than three hundred acres. For every four of these farms, 
again, there are but three labourers. Whatever the theoretical 
advantages possessed by the English triad of squire, farmer, 
and labourer, it is beyond all doubt that the American combi- 
nation of freeholder, husbandman, and labourer in one man, 
stimulates energy and develops ingenuity in a very remarkable 
manner. 
Western New York, again, was itself formerly the granary 
of North America, and Rochester was a city of mills. All has 
changed with the introduction of Western wheat. Wheat-fields 
have become orchards; the mills, once thickly lining the banks 
of the Genesee Eiver, have disappeared, or become factories ; 
the very citizens have forgotten their old piide in the " Flour 
City," and now call their town (without reason, it must be con- 
fessed) the " Flower City." Throughout twelve of the most 
fertile counties of Western New York, the cultivation of fruit, 
especially of apples, has, within fifteen years, superseded that of 
every other crop. The orchard products of New York State 
were valued at nearly nine million dollars in 1880, the last 
census year, and will probably be worth far more in 1890. 
The greater part of these apples are grown around Rochester, 
where, within a radius of forty miles, nearly two thousand fruit- 
drying establishments are now in operation. 
Only by the aid of these " Evaporators " could such a condition 
of cultivation as that now prevailing in the district under review 
be maintained. Thousands of tons of apples are prepared annually 
from grades of fruit formerly wasted or allowed to rot on the 
ground. The fruit-drier and the extension of fruit-farming have 
gone hand-in-hand, and, following naturally upon their union, 
the dried-fruit merchant has appeared, and flourishes. He does 
not himself evaporate fruit, but buys botli from Evaporating 
establishments and the farmer, packs for export, and exploits 
the whole world for markets. Chief among these gentlemen in 
the town of Rochester ranks the firm of Michael Doyle & Co., 
to whom the writer gladly acknowledges his obligation for nearly 
all the information on the subject of fruit-evaporation to be found 
in this article. 
Glancing, first, at general facts indicating the character and 
