18 
BULLETIN 43, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
suming a usual yield of pods, a curing barn 20 feet square, with. 
18-foot posts and a high pitched roof, can by proper management 
cure the peppers grown on a 10-acre field. This assumes such fea- 
tures of construction as are described for increasing the floor surface 
of the barn. 
The curing barn used in this work is a simple 1-walled building, 
20 feet square, with 18-foot posts and a steeply pitched roof. (Fig. 
8.) The tightly built walls rise from the ground and there is no 
floor. The barns are usually made with double walls in order better 
to retain the heat. 
In one end of the building are two brick furnaces built 12 feet 
apart. These furnaces (figs. 9 and 10, a) are semicircular in shape, 
or archlike, and are 7 feet long, 2 feet high, and 2 feet in width. 
They are built on the 
ground with about 18 
inches extending out- 
side the barn, 5^ feet 
being inside (fig. 10). 
From the interior end 
of these furnaces sheet- 
iron flues (6), 10 to 12 
inches in diameter, ex- 
tend along the side of 
the house to within 2 
feet of the opposite end 
wall. Here by means 
of elbows the flues are 
carried to a point 2 
feet short of the mid- 
dle line, at which place, 
again by means of elbows, the flues return to the first end of the barn 
and after making another turn pass out at a point just above the 
furnace. The flues throughout their course are slightly ascending, 
and the smoke which traverses them, with the hot air. is discharged 
through a pipe (c) above the furnace. (Figs. 9 and 10.) 
The crates to receive the peppers during the drying process con- 
sist of wire-bottomed trays 8 feet long, 30 inches wide, and 5 inches 
deep. (Fig. 11.) To construct a crate, a rectangular wooden frame 
8 feet long by 30 inches wide is made, using material 1 inch thick 
and 2 inches wide. Midway between the ends a crosspiece is nailed 
in order to strengthen the frame and support the wire. To this 
frame the wire is tacked with small staples. The best wire to use is 
the quarter-inch galvanized-iron kind, but if it is desirable to use 
a cheaper quality the 16-mesh wire gauze can be used instead, 
reducing the cost to about one-third the price of the stronger 
Pig. 8. — Curing barn used in drying paprika peppers. 
