352 
THE GARDENER’S ASSISTANT 
The process is very simple, and is essentially 
the same whether provision is being made for 
a dozen bottles or as many thousands. If the 
fruit to be dealt with is gathered clean and dry 
from the trees, and the bottles are in a similar 
condition, no further preparation is required. 
It can be placed at once in the bottles, and all 
is ready for the final operation. A wide boiler 
must be used sufficiently deep to hold water up 
to the necks of the bottles, or about a foot in 
depth, a convenient size of bottle being from 10 
to 11 inches high, with the mouth 2 inches in 
diameter. It is well to have a layer of canvas 
or some similar material at the bottom of the 
boiler, and this is equally useful between the 
bottles, as it will assist in reducing the danger 
of breakages. 
The fruit should be placed in the bottles, the 
mouths of which should be left open. They are 
Fig. 1126.—Lee’s Patent Fruit-bottlin-g Apparatus, showing thermometer 
(a) at side, aud bottles placed in boiler ready for heating. 
then placed in the boiler, which is filled with 
water to the desired height, and then it must 
be slowly raised to the boiling-point. As a rule, 
by the time the water is boiling the fruit is suf¬ 
ficiently cooked for keeping; it is not advisable 
to overdo it, or when turned out for use subse¬ 
quently it will be soft and flavourless. The form 
of the fruit should be preserved, as if any of it 
splits, or the skin of Plums is broken, its appear¬ 
ance is spoiled and the selling value greatly 
diminished. A kettle of boiling water must be 
at hand, and as fast as the bottles are removed 
from the fire they should be filled with this 
water and immediately tied down with bladder, 
or corked and sealed with common sealing-wax 
or bottle-wax, in such a manner as to effectually 
prevent the admission of air; the fruit will then 
keep for a year or more. 
Several manufacturing firms have brought out 
simple, cheap appliances for bottling fruits on a 
small scale. One of these is a round metal boiler 
that will contain about a dozen bottles at a 
time, and is adapted for use on an ordinary stove 
or fire. This is sold with two dozen patent 
bottles at as low as 35s., the bottles themselves 
being fitted with metallic tops, which are secured 
by spring clips that are easily removed and re¬ 
placed though they answer all the purposes of 
an air-tight cork or bladder top. In some of 
these apparatus a kettle is connected with the 
side, and steam thus takes the place of a direct 
application of heat from a fire. Whatever method 
is adopted the essential part of the business is 
that the boiling should not be done too rapidly, 
and the more gradually it is done within reason 
the more likely is the fruit to retain its form, 
colour, and flavour, so that when required for 
use it should as nearly as possible resemble the 
fresh product. 
Fruit Evaporating or Drying .-—As regards its 
economic bearing upon the fruit culture of other 
countries, but especially in America, Germany, 
and France, the process of preserving fruits by 
evaporating or drying is by far the most im¬ 
portant and extensive. In Great Britain at 
present it has only been tried in an exj^eri- 
mental or tentative manner, but some have 
already proved that it can be utilized to good 
purpose, and there is an increasing demand for 
information of a reliable character, i.e. that re¬ 
sulting from experience. The Royal Agricul¬ 
tural Society and the Royal Horticultural 
Society have endeavoured to draw attention to 
the matter in England, both by the institution 
of experiments and by the publication of reports. 
Individual experimenters and a few firms have 
also taken up the work, and evidence is now 
accumulating bearing upon the possibility of 
making the operation profitable in this country. 
A few years ago Mr. D. Pidgeon contributed 
a report to the Journal of the Boyal Agricul¬ 
tural Society, which summarized the case as re¬ 
gards the United States, and it is interesting to 
compare what he says with the conditions that' 
prevail in Great Britain:—“Why is the British 
farmer so slow and his transatlantic cousin and 
competitor so quick in adapting himself to 
altered conditions of cultivation 1 ? The entry 
of the Great West in the character of a wheat- 
grower upon the agricultural stage of the world 
created a depression in the agriculture of the 
Eastern States of America, no less marked than 
that which followed from the same cause in 
England. New England no more than Old 
England could after that entry any longer 
