Vol. LXI. No. 2726. 
NEW YORK, APRIL 26, 1902 
$1 PER YEAR 
PLANS FOR EVAPORATING FRUIT. 
A CHANGE FROM TRAYS TO KILN. 
Suggestions from the Experts. 
A reader thinks of changing his method of evaporating 
fruit from trays to a kiln if he can do it economically. 
He wishes to run about 100 bushels per day, bank the 
fire about nine o’clock in the evening and start at five 
in the morning. In your opinion, how large a kiln will 
he need? What kind of wood will he have to use for 
the kiln floors, what size strips, and ought the floors to 
be plastered or ceiled? He says that there is a ventilator 
in the roof over the west end and a window in the east 
end of his present building. Will this do for ventilation? 
He also wishes to know about the plans for a bleacher, 
and also a safe place to get a stove for heating. 
BUILD IT LARGE ENOUGH.—A kiln for evaporat¬ 
ing apples, large enough to run 100 bushels per day, 
should be 20x20 feet square. The best wood for kiln 
floors is whitewood. The strips should be made of 
one-inch stuff, one inch wide at top and one-half inch 
wide at bottom, laid three-sixteenths inch apart. No 
plastering or ceiling is necessary. The kiln floor 
must be 10 feet from ground floor. Insurance com¬ 
panies require that distance, or they 
will not take the risk. I would put the 
ventilator in the center, or put an¬ 
other on each end, and put it up above 
all other parts of the building, so 
as to have the hot, moist air taken out 
rapidly; also have air vents near ground 
to let in cool dry air. The faster the 
circulation the more rapid the evapora¬ 
tion. The bleacher should be made up¬ 
right, and large enough to take in a 
bushel crate, and hold 10 to 12 crates 
one above the other, rigged so as to put 
in the crates below and take them out 
on the kiln floor. A good kiln furnace 
will cost from $25 to $35. c. e. c. 
Newark, N. Y. 
GET FACTS AT HEADQUARTERS. 
—I have received a great many inquir¬ 
ies from people who wish to build or 
remodel evaporators, and invariably tell 
them to come to Sodus and see for 
themselves the various kinds which are 
here in operation during the Fall. It 
would require a kiln about 20 feet 
square to handle 100 bushels of apples 
per day, although from 9 P. M. to 5 A. 
M. is rather long to leave a kiln and 
make good prime stock. However, 
some of our evaporator men follow that 
plan by banking their fire during the 
night. The wood used for floors is near¬ 
ly always hard maple, cut in long strips nearly V- 
shaped, from inch lumber, leaving one-eighth inch 
space between the top edges. The floors are never 
plastered or ceiled, but walls are made tight by either 
of above ways. A 20-foot kiln would require a venti¬ 
lator about six feet square, and run above the build¬ 
ing (or any surrounding obstacles that would inter¬ 
fere with the draft) six to lo feet. A kiln should 
have a good-sized window or door that can be opened 
on all four sides so as to cool off the room when 
necessary to enter it to turn, put on or take off the 
fruit. The most popular bleacher in this section to¬ 
day is the “box bleacher”; the elevated bleacher is 
sometimes more convenient in hoisting the apples to 
floor of kiln. A stove! That makes an evaporator 
man laugh. In order to evaporate 100 bushels daily 
it needs one of the largest and heaviest furnaces 
made for heating houses. We have a furnace made 
here that is being used by most of the evaporators in 
this section. Again I say, tell your inquirer to come 
to Sodus and get a Sodus carpenter. b. j. case. 
Sodus, N. Y. 
IN A NUTSHELL.—I have been engaged in the. 
evaporating of apples for a long time, and have seen 
many changes, both in demand as to quality as well 
as methods of doing the work. Yesterday the demand 
was for wood-dried apples, to-day it is for choice 
tray-made fruit for the home trade; simply a ques¬ 
tion of supply and demand. I would not advise any¬ 
one who can make good tray fruit to change to a 
kiln. The kiln is good enough for the new man to 
start with; but the demand to-day is for better fruit 
than can be made on the kiln. Better strive to meet 
that demand than to rush into the market with an 
article that is a drug in times of a full crop. A floor 
16x16 feet or one 18x18 feet, will dry 100 bushels per 
day. There are two kinds of heaters for kiln use; 
the open grate and the furnace. I would suggest hard 
maple or even soft maple in place of basswood for 
slats. I would lay the slats three-sixteenths inch 
apart; would use joist of 1x12 hemlock placed 12 
inches center and use three rows bridging, to keep 
them from warping out of shape. Floor should be 
from five to 10 feet above furnace top. It is not cus¬ 
tomary to plaster or ceil up the sides of kilns at pres¬ 
ent time. Ventilator should be in center of room, not 
to one side. If a furnace is used the pipe should be 
carried around the room under the floor and then 
brought up through the center and then out of the 
center of ventilator to increase the circulation in bad 
weather. If you use an open fire no pipe will be re¬ 
quired. I would suggest the double box bleacher as 
the one best adapted for one kiln. Build a box 2 y 2 xa 
feet by five feet high. Divide in two parts by a tight 
partition. About a foot from the bottom put in a 
slat floor; place same on quite a steep angle, so that 
the apples will slide out into a bushel box or basket 
when the door is open. Above this slat floor place 
another one, but do not have the second one come 
quite to the side; these slat partitions are placed on 
the opposite angle from the floors. The object is to 
cause the apples to roll over in the sulphur fumes, 
also to prevent too many to lie in one body. They 
often have three or four of these slat partitions in 
each side of the bleacher. Apples are either caused 
to roll directly into these bleachers or are turned into 
them from a box or basket; one side is being emptied 
while the other is being filled. Brimstone fire is 
changed from side to side as is required. l. r. r. 
Albipp, N. Y. 
“FORM- TREE FRUIT CULTURE 
GIANT FRUIT FROM DWARF TREKS. 
Pleasant Work for Amateurs. 
My experience in apple trees produced by budding 
upon Paradise and Doucin stock, and pear trees bud¬ 
ded upon quinces is hardly past the experimental 
stage. The soil, climate and the many varieties in 
apples and pears all affect the result. Form-tree cul¬ 
ture, in my opinion, is of great -value rather to the 
small producers, having small gardens, little patches 
around the house, than to producers on a grand scale, 
unless some of the latter make a specialty of raising 
fancy apples and pears for table use, where fancy 
prices are gladly paid for fancy fruit, especially near 
the larger cities. Fancy fruit in this connection is 
meant to be fruit of the largest possible size, the 
finest flavor and the best color; there is no doubt 
among all the authorities in this line that fruit raised 
on such dwarf stock much surpasses anything that 
can be raised on seedlings (wild stock) as to size, 
flavor and looks. The method I am following, long 
known in France, was practiced to some 
extent in Germany, but credit for mak¬ 
ing it the common property of the public 
is due to the persistent endeavors, both 
through lectures and books, made for 
the past 35 years by the “leather” of 
form-tree culture in Germany, N. Gau¬ 
cher, of Stuttgart, Germany, who hav¬ 
ing learned the “trade” in France, in¬ 
troduced many innovations into Ger¬ 
many. Another advantage of form- 
trees is the fact that with them there is 
no such thing as fruit years and off 
years, but an average crop every year, 
ivhile with standard trees we have one 
year of a more or less large crop suc¬ 
ceeded by an off year, in the fruit year 
all the nourishment being taken up for 
fruit, to the neglect of fruit buds, which 
the tree produces the following year, 
and these fruit buds bring fruit the next 
year after. Of course, such form cul¬ 
ture is out of the question for the aver¬ 
age farmer who dumps some manure 
once in three or five years around his 
fruit trees and harvests the fruit when¬ 
ever there is any, this being the only 
time he gets near the trees, but it is 
just the thing for fancy farmers or 
would-be fancy farmers, the large class 
of amateurs, whom it permits with ever 
so little space available to raise then- 
own fruit, fin place of the usual grass plot around the 
house. Another advantage is the fact that by making 
judicious selection among what are called free-bear¬ 
ing, or early-bearing apples and pears, the bud which 
you inserted (by “oculation”) a year ago last August, 
and which produced a “whip” the past season, may 
bring some fruit the coming season, and almost surely 
will have fruit the season after next. There are many 
people of advanced age who would gladly plant some 
fruit trees, provided they could be assured of reaping 
the harvest themselves, instead of planting for their 
descendants. 
Of course, raising form-trees requires some knowl¬ 
edge; you cannot allow the trees to grow as they 
please, as in the case of standards, but (and that is 
another great advantage) the thousands of business, 
laboring and professional people would welcome a 
chance to give what little attention is needed in re¬ 
turn for the benefit derived from the light work in 
the open air put in before or after business hours, get¬ 
ting the reward of their efforts in seeing the fruit 
grow before their eyes. As to the method of raising 
such trees, anyone with a little interest can learn it in 
