1904. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
9o7 
A WAYNE COUNTY, N. Y., EVAPORATOR. 
The evaporating industry that has developed in west¬ 
ern New York during the past quarter of a century is 
cue of the most important that the farmers of this sec¬ 
tion engage in, and the volume of business in this line 
increases each year there is a good apple crop. Prior 
to 1880 it was thought to be beneath the dignity of a 
farmer to spend his time during the sunlight hours pre¬ 
paring apples for drying, and it was then the custom 
during the Fall and early Winter for the farmer and 
his family each-evening to peel and quarter and core 
a few bushels of apples, which were cither strung on 
twine and hung on frames about the kitchen stove or 
spread on boards and dried in the sunlight. It fre¬ 
quently happened that for several days in succession 
the atmospheric conditions would be such that the 
apples would rot. The farmer’s family that at the close 
of the season could take to market 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000 
pounds of dried apples was the envy of the country, and 
was spoken of as being unusually industrious. About 
1880 artificial heat began to be used for evaporating 
purposes, and the evaporators of that period were very 
crude affairs, usually a little building made of rough 
boards with doors on two sides through which access 
was had to the interior. In the upper part were slides 
carrying trays with slatted bottoms, on which the fruit 
was spread. The heat was supplied by some old stove 
that was no longer fit for duty in the parlor or kitchen. 
The apples were no longer quartered and cored, but the 
cores were punched out with a tube, after which the 
apples were bleached in brimstone fumes and sliced 
into rings. 
A few years later the box drier appeared, and was 
installed in a building where all 
of the work of preparing the 
apples was done, and the prod¬ 
uct stored. With the box drier 
came better machinery for pre¬ 
paring the apples; viz., a ma¬ 
chine that peeled and cored the 
apple at a single operation, and 
the rotary slicer, which is still 
in use and with which a lively 
young man can cut a bushel in 
two minutes. In the box driers 
the fruit was spread on galvan¬ 
ized wire trays, but this prac¬ 
tice became objectionable, as it 
injured the export trade. Ger¬ 
many, which was a large pur¬ 
chaser of American evaporated 
apples, discovered by chemical 
analysis traces of zinc on the 
apples dried on the wire trays, 
so it was necessary to evaporate 
the apples on wood or lose the 
German trade. The hop kiln 
was tried, and with some modi¬ 
fication proved to be more eco¬ 
nomical than the box drier, and 
is now used almost universally. 
At big. 42G is shown an evap¬ 
orator of this type. It is a 
double kiln, and represents 
the average evaporating plant 
of this vicinity, of which 
there are perhaps 20 within 
a radius of two miles. At the evaporator shown 
two paring machines are used. Two women trim the 
apples from each machine. A man is required to slice 
apples and tend the kilns during the day, and another 
to do this work during the night. One man tends the 
bleacher and keeps the bins shown at end of building 
full for the peelers. The proprietor of the plant attends 
to the supervision of the business and markets the 
product. The daily run at this plant is from 120 to 140 
bushels, and the run for the season will be 15,000 
bushels. There are 6,000 bushels of apples shown in 
the illustration. j. o. wadsworth. 
Wayne Co., N. Y. 
SHALL IT BE FACTORY OR FARM? 
I have been a subscriber to The R. N.-Y. for 12 
years, and I have found it an invaluable help. Many 
times when I have been at a loss to know what to do, it 
has been the means of helping me out. In 1S91 I came 
in possession of 10 acres of a steep hillside sloping north, 
and in 1892 I built a house at the foot of it, and through 
my own inexperience, and mismanagement of the con¬ 
tractor, when I got through building I had a debt of 
$3,500 and $10 a week income. To make matters worse, 
in 1893 the factory where I am employed went on half 
time, so you can imagine how I stood. The question 
came up what to do. I had 10 acres of hillside that 
was covered with large rocks, stumps and brush, so I 
went at it with hammer, drills and powder, and cleaned 
up one-third of an acre, and set it to blackcaps and red 
raspberries. Of course I knew nothing about fruits 
whatever, except that I was very fond of them. The 
first two years were about failures, so I saw that I must 
have information. A friend advised me to take The 
R. N.-Y. I did so, and through the information gained 
by the reading of its pages, in 1899 the receipts from 
the place were $900. Since that date the receipts have 
been somewhat less, as there is no labor to be had in 
this vicinity that can be depended upon to set out 
fruits, as I have paid dearly to find out. Again, I found 
that by the time I had five acres cleaned up it would 
not stand the cultivation necessary to grow good fruit, 
as the rains washed the hill so badly that it took all 
the fertility with it as fast as I could cart it up. In the 
meantime I have been watching the pages of The R. 
N.-Y. to find out what others were doing with their 
hills, and I have concluded that trees are the best, 
mulched and dug around them. I now have out about 
600 trees, and some that I set last Spring have grown 
four feet and I do not have to worry every time I see 
a shower coming. 
Two years ago T found that trees would not keep me 
busy, so I started the poultry business. The plant cost 
me $300, and this year the receipts from 150 hens have 
been $420, and expenses $219, leaving me $201 ahead to 
date. Now where is the man who says poultry does 
not pay? I cannot see why it will not if you feed right 
and take anywhere near reasonable care of the fowls. 
My neighbors told me I could not raise chickens on 
the north side of a hill. I think you can raise them 
anywhere but in a swamp. The great disadvantage is 
that everything has to be carried up hill, which makes 
one feel sometimes as if he would like to give it away 
and get where it is level, as I have to do this work 
nights and mornings, and work 10 hours in the factory. 
My object in writing this is to ask for advice. For the 
past 12 years my ambition has been to own a fruit farm; 
to make an independent living and to give my children 
a little better education than I was able to get, as I 
had to go to work when I was 15; I have been shut in 
between four walls for 20 years, and I feel as if I would 
like to get out. I know that when a man is making a 
good living it is often better to leave good enough alone, 
but it does not look to me as though a man ought to 
do that if he could do better, even if there is a little 
risk attached to it. There is a fine home market here 
for all one can raise. I have never been able to supply 
all the berries the people wanted; even when we had 800 
baskets a day there was room for more. What would 
you do if you were in my place? Stick to an occupa¬ 
tion where you consume to-morrow what you earn to¬ 
day, or take up fruit growing and be a free man to work 
at what you like best? a. a. s. 
Morris Co., N. J. 
R. N.-Y.—We always feel like dodging a question of 
this sort, because our answer depends on things which 
no human can analyze. If we had health and were will¬ 
ing to work, and had a cheerful and willing wife who 
could be satisfied on a small farm, we would not hesi¬ 
tate to leave the factory and depend upon the farm for 
a living. You will see that there are several “ifs” in 
this, and they must all be considered. Tt would either 
take the heart out of a man or spoil him as a good 
citizen to go to such a farm and find, too late, that 
wife and children are unhappy and out of place. A man 
who is working for a home can make no sadder dis¬ 
covery than this. We should be very sure about this 
before we broke entirely away from the factory. Any 
poor man who makes a home for himself in the country 
must pay for it in hard and trying sacrifices, often too 
hard for the man to endure alone. It is sometimes said 
that the wife should always be willing to endure any 
reasonable sacrifice for the sake of her husband. The 
reverse is also true of the husband, and we must remem¬ 
ber that human nature and human endurance arc not 
made of either cast iron or rubber. If husband and wife 
are agreed and understand what is before them the 
change would probably be safe and wise. Others have 
succeeded under like conditions—that is, they have paid 
their living expenses when conducted in a modest way, 
improved the property and laid aside some hundreds 
of dollars. As a rule that is about the limit of such 
success. The plan of keeping such steep soil in trees, 
under a mulch, with hens and small fruit at the lower 
part, is just right. By working in this way a man can 
often buy such land at a low figure and make it very 
productive. 
THE ESSENTIALS OF A GOOD CELLAR. 
Ought a cellar of which the bottom is the uncovered bed 
rock to be warmer or colder in Winter than one whose bot¬ 
tom is of sand or clay? What would be the advantages or 
disadvantages of such a cellar as a place of storage for fruit 
and vegetables? In the case of a bowlder imbedded in the 
ground except at its upper surface, will frost penetrate to a 
greater depth beneath the bowlder than beneath the surface 
of the ground in its neighborhood? j. d. t. 
Waterville, Me. 
Tt not infrequently happens, in the colder parts of 
the United States, that frost penetrates to a depth of 
five feet, and in exceptional cases to a depth of six feet, 
while it is safe to expect that 
generally it will penetrate to a 
depth of four feet. During the 
Summer season the subsoil 
temperature at three feet dur¬ 
ing July, August and Septem¬ 
ber usually ranges between 60 
degrees F. in the extreme 
north, and 80 degrees F. in the 
latitude of North Carolina and 
Tennessee. It is clear, there¬ 
fore, that whether the object of 
the cellar is to maintain a high 
temperature in Winter or a low 
temperature in Summer its 
depth below the general surface 
of the ground is an important 
factor. In either case, unless 
the ground water prevents, the 
bottom should exceed six feet 
below the general surface of 
the ground; and, in the North, 
a deep, well-built cellar under 
the whole house, is one of the 
best investments which can be 
made, not only to cut down the 
fuel bill, but on the ground of 
health and of convenience as 
well. Cold floors and cold feet 
are invariably associated with 
cellarless houses, and one of 
the most unsanitary features of 
southern dwellings in the Win¬ 
ter is the open foundations. It 
will be a surprise to many who have given little thought 
to the matter, how little extra expense a cellar under the 
whole house, over one under only a portion of it, costs; 
but the truth is readily seen when it is recalled that in 
cold climates foundation walls are required under the 
whole house, and that these must extend at least two 
feet into the ground. Since the warmth of the cellar 
in Winter and its cooling effect in Summer is derived 
chiefly from the bottom it follows that its bottom should 
be of such a material as will readily conduct heat during 
the Winter, so as to bring it rapidly up from below, and 
in Summer so as to convey it as rapidly downward. 
Rock is a better conductor of heat than sand, soil or 
clay, and hence a rock bottom cellar, other conditions 
being the same, will be warmer in Winter and cooler in 
Summer. So, too, a large bowlder, extending from the 
surface deep into the ground adjacent to a cellar wall, 
will have the effect to make it colder in Winter and 
warmer in Summer. 
When the bottom of the cellar is sand, soil or clay the 
surface should be covered with cement, not only for sani¬ 
tary reasons—and these are very strong—but because it 
will be a much better temperature regulator; this is be¬ 
cause dry soil, sand and clay do not conduct well, but 
when the cellar bottom is cemented the soil beneath must 
remain always moist, while the cement may become dry 
and be kept clean, and in a perfectly sanitary condition. 
If the upper four feet of the foundation wall is made 
hollow, or if it is furred out and plastered, the cellar will 
be rendered very materially more efficient. Tt is of the 
greatest importance, also, to have tight windows and 
especially perfectly tight connection between the sill of 
the house and the cellar wall. When the construction is 
such that the wind pressure can force a more rapid 
change than is needed for ample ventilation the cellar 
will necessarily be cold in Winter and warm in Summer. 
[prof.] f. h. king. 
EXTERIOR OF A WAYNE CO., N. Y„ EVAPORATOR. Fig. 426. 
