- 26 - 
with paper end fancy mats. The box upon completion resembles the Pacific 
Coast fancy Christmas packages. 
In the less pretentions plant, the faced boxes are carried to the 
lower floor where they are placed end to end in a double row and filled 
with prunes. In case the prunes are too wot to 30 directly into the boxes, 
they may first be spread out on open trays and there be subjected to heat 
in the bake ovens. The prunes are then tramped down into the boxes or 
placed under the press as is now generally practiced in the better plants. 
After this, they are weighed, the tops are nailed on by hand .and they are 
ready for the sterilizers. 
• 
The prunes, thus packed, are placed on a car whose steel frame is so 
constructed that ventilation between the boxes is possible. These cars 
operate on tracks which frequently run almost the entire length of the plant 
and enter the oven or drying chamber. The chambers or dry kilns are lined 
up in batteries of two or four depending upon the size of the plant. The 
walls and top are of masonry and doors and framings of steel. The hot air 
in the chamber is supplied by the metal smoke flues running beneath the 
tracks from fire boxes located beneath the ovens at one end of the chamber. 
Steady temperatures are maintained by means of thermometers and ventilators. 
The prunes are left in the kilns from twelve to eighteen hours at a temper- 
ature of from 100 to 110 degrees Centigrade, depending upon the condition of 
the fruit. It is stated that the interior of the packed boxes reaches a 
temperature of 70 degrees Centigrade. Owing to the heat the boxes themselves 
often spring open and require renailing. The shrinkage is very slight un- 
less the prunes were too wet when they are sent in. 
The method above described is a modification of the true French 
system under which the prunes are first placed in steel cylinders-, 5 inches 
across and 3 feet high and holding from 26 to 33 pounds of prunes. From 55 
to SO of these cylinders are placed in a circular tank, the bottom of which 
is perforated for the admittance of steam. The tanks are closed and brought 
to a temperature of 100 to 105 degrees Centigrade by the application of steam. 
The cylinders are taken out after four hours. The fruit is then emptied into 
faced boxes and pressed down. The packed boxes are then weighed, nailed and 
sent to the baking chambers for another period of four hours. This more 
complicated system of packing is rarely used in Yugoslavia.' 
The larger and more modern packing plants employ from forty to fifty 
workers during the prune season. The packing industry appears to have made 
greater progress in Bosnia than in Serbia, due undoubtedly to the influence 
of Austro-Hirigarian control prior to the war. Packing plants in that dis- 
trict are larger and the work seems to bo better organized. While, on the 
Pacific Coast, brands and markings are largely printed by machines made for 
that purpose, in Yugoslavia the lithographed label is exclusively used. Size 
and der.ui: tion merles are brushed on by hand. For strapping material a broad 
flat Land is used instead of the wire used on the Pacific Coast. It is put 
on the boxes either by hand or with a small machine. 
