410 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
TiEIlE M©U§EE[©1LB. 
15£T’ For other Household Items see “ Basket ” pages. 
Fruit Dryers and “Evaporators.” 
Fruit quickly dried, in the dark, by artificial 
heat, is now known in the market as “ evap¬ 
orated ” fruit. The name is used to distin¬ 
guish the product from that dried in the old 
way by the heat of the sun, and is suffi¬ 
ciently superior in quality to warrant a dis¬ 
tinctive name. The fact that fruit thus pre¬ 
pared brings a much better price than the 
old, dark-colored, sun-dried article, has in¬ 
duced a large number to write us, asking us 
to give them a plan for building an “ Evap¬ 
orator.” We are at once met with a diffi¬ 
culty. There are to our knowledge at least 
six different evaporators, no doubt all good 
ones, and each one is patented. No doubt six 
different points are covered by these patents, 
and it would be impossible, apparently, for 
us to describe an evaporator that would not 
conflict with one or more of these claims. 
In such cases, we consider that it is better to 
purchase a patented article, or the right to 
make one. To attempt to make an evapo¬ 
rator himself, one has to run two risks—one 
that it will not work satisfactorily, and the 
other, if it does work well, it may infringe 
upon somebody’s patent, and involve a law 
suit. We are therefore confident that on both 
considerations it will be cheaper to purchase 
an evaporator that is already in the market. 
The experiments have already been made, 
and the apparatus is sure to work satisfac¬ 
torily, while there is no danger of infringing 
upon the rights of others. The various evap¬ 
orators, so far as we have seen them, or seen 
Fig. 1. —A HOME-MADE FRUIT EVAPORATOR. 
drawings of them, consist in the first place 
of a source of heat—a stove of some kind. 
This is to create a current of hot air which 
rises into a chamber above, where the fruit is 
placed for drying. The contrivances for 
handling the trays that hold the fruit, for 
raising them and lowering by means of end¬ 
less chains, and by other methods, vary con¬ 
siderably in the different kinds, and we judge 
that the patents refer largely to these me¬ 
chanical portions of the various evaporators. 
With every desire to oblige our friends, we 
do not see that it is possible to suggest a 
method that is not already covered by a pat¬ 
ent, and we feel sure that it will be cheapest 
in the end, for one whose business is large 
enough to require such an apparatus, to ar¬ 
range with some one of those who hold 
patents to put it up. To illustrate the prin¬ 
ciple of a dryer, we give an engraving, (fig.l), 
from memory, of one that we made 30 years 
ago. It was a tall box of galvanized iron (a 
material then just coming into use), with two 
doors in front, not shown in the engraving. 
Fig. 2. —DRYING FRUIT UHDER SASHES. 
The lower door came up to the division d, 
and the upper one covered the rest of the 
box. For the heater we made use of a cast- 
iron furnace, a, such as were then in com¬ 
mon use in summer, for burning charcoal or 
coke. Upon the top of this was placed a 
sheet-iron cylinder, b; this had a door for 
feeding, and a pipe, c, which carried off the 
products of combustion through the side of 
the box. This converted the furnace into a 
stove, the combustion in which could be 
regulated by a damper in the pipe, and the 
management of the draft hole at the bottom. 
Above the stove was a.horizontal partition, 
d, to prevent too strong radiation of heat. 
The box had short legs to raise it a few 
inches ; holes in the bottom admitted air from 
below ; this air being heated passed through 
openings in d, came in contact with the fruit 
or other material to be dried, and passed out 
through openings in the top of the box. At 
e, e, are ledges to support the trays holding 
the article to be dried. This simple design, 
which did good service for several years, 
comprises in principle all that the most com¬ 
plicated can have—a means of heating air 
and an arrangement for conveying this air 
to the article to be dried. The ‘ ‘ Evaporators ” 
enlarge this, and have the machinery for 
handling the trays essential on a large scale. 
The principle here indicated is carried out, 
very completely, and with many improve¬ 
ments in the “Zimmerman Dryer,” illustrated 
in October, 1879. The Zimmerman was not 
in existence at the time, or we should have 
much preferred such a complete apparatus 
as we have since found that to be, to the 
make-shift which we were then compelled to 
adopt. It is proper to say that the superior 
quality of the “evaporated” fruit is not en¬ 
tirely due to the form of apparatus. The re¬ 
markable whiteness is produced by burning 
a small quantity of sulphur at the proper 
time. The sellers of the apparatus give 
directions for doing this. Properly managed, 
it cannot affect the taste of the fruit, and 
no unpleasant consequences can result. 
Those who have hot-bed sashes can dry 
fruit by the heat of the sun in a manner vastly 
superior to the ordinary method. A box 
should be made like a hot-bed frame, but 
with a bottom, and it should have legs to 
raise it a few inches from the ground. The 
sashes should fit sufficiently closely to keep 
out dust and insects. In the front of the box, 
at the bottom, make openings under the 
middle of each sash, and at the rear, at the 
top make similar openings. We do not rec¬ 
ollect the exact size we used, but probably 
12 inches long by three wide will answer. 
These openings should be covered with wire 
cloth, though in its absence mosquito netting 
or a similar stuff will answer. The fruit, or 
other article to be dried, should be upon trays 
or frames covered with some coarse fabric, 
and raised a few inches from the bottom of 
the box. The sash being so placed as to catch 
the full heat of the sun, the drying will go 
on in a surprisingly rapid manner. The air 
passing in at th<j lower openings will become 
quickly heated, and going out at the upper 
openings a current will be established, carry¬ 
ing off the moisture from the fruit, etc., in 
the most satisfactory manner. The product 
will not be so white as when dried by artifi¬ 
cial heat, but for home use just as good, and 
it will be free from dust and the soiling by 
insects. We have dried the finest sweet corn 
imaginable with a contrivance like this, and 
have no doubt of its efficacy in drying fruit. 
An idea of the frame is given in figure 2, 
which shows a box with a single sash, but usu¬ 
ally a larger dryer will be required, and one 
arranged for three hot-bed sashes of the usu¬ 
al size will be none too long for ordinary use. 
Household Notes and Queries. 
A correspondent in Philadelphia, “ H. J. 
N.,” writes that from the name of our jour¬ 
nal “ one would expect to find it devoted ex¬ 
clusively to agriculture,” yet he, a resident of 
a city, “gleans many grains of knowledge 
from its pages which are useful in city house¬ 
holds.” Our friend overlooks a part of the 
title of the paper, which in full is : “ The 
American Agricidtu rist, 
For the Farm, Garden, and Household.” 
We would by no means neglect the House¬ 
hold. For what is the farmer’s toil? To 
what do all his labors contribute ? Is not the 
Household the end and aim of all ? As house¬ 
holds, whether in the rude house of the new 
settler, or in the brown-stone front of a 
crowded city, have much in common, and 
human wants are much the same everywhere, 
it would be strange indeed if dwellers in a 
city should not find useful hints from those 
who belong in a farm household. It has 
been our aim, and well have house-keepers 
everywhere aided us, to recognize 
The Great Sisterhood of House-keepers, 
and to encourage their efforts to help one 
another. Let a house-keeper in far-off Wash¬ 
ington Territory meet with some difficulty in 
her domestic affairs, she has but to name it 
in these columns, and the whole sisterhood, 
all the way from Nova Scotia in the East and 
Florida and Texas on the South, will rush to 
her help, and soon after we will get words of 
aid and comfort from our outlying provinces 
in Tasmania and South Africa. Agriculture 
is the means ; the Household, with its grow¬ 
ing boys and girls, that are to ripen into the 
most precious crop of the farm—men and 
women, is the end. So if, when we write 
For the Farm, Garden, and Household, 
we place the household last, it is because that 
is the end for which the farm and garden 
exist.Our Philadelphia friend, in return 
for the many useful tilings he has found in 
our Household columns wishes to make a re¬ 
turn. His family were fond of boiled cab- 
