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Show f horticulture! I This Department is Edited by Prof. R. S. Northrop, A. C. U. Editor Dcseret Farmer: Please tell us through "The Farmer" how best to dry prunes on a small scale so that the skins will be tender. If one should cut and dry prunes without the pips would that spoil the flavor of them? Yours respectfully, C C. STEFFENSEN. Murray, Utah. Answer by R. S. Northrop. Making Prunes. To make a first-class prune it is very desirable that the fruit be thoroughly thor-oughly ripe, and if this ripening, :an be accomplished, in dry, warm weather weath-er so much the better. There have been seasons when growers have had to gather their prunes in the rain. Under such conditions a first-class prune cannot be made. "Tndry, warm weather the time occupied in evaporating evapor-ating will be several hours shorter than in dull damp weather. If we had a prune as large as the Italian or Silver, Sil-ver, and of as good quality and, appearance ap-pearance as these, that would, thoroughly thor-oughly ripen by the middle or last of July, we would then be in shape; to assure a first-class article annuajly. At present there is no prune which fills these conditions. Tragedy, a recent re-cent introduction fromr California, ripens early enough, but while it is large and attractive as a green fruit it does not make a very desirable prune, ibcing of a. dingy color and quite acid. Golden prune, originated hv the late Scth Lewcllintr, of Ore gon, ripens early enough and makes a prune fof fair quality, but iAs color is against it,, it requires to be sulphured, sul-phured, and like the silver prune is easily blemished, it is only of medium size and very soft in flesh . Some 1 cross-breeding of the prunes now on hand' may result in the variety we arc looking for. ". Evaporating Prunes. The first step in the evaporation of prunes is to gather the fruit It is. admitted on all hands that the fruit ought to bo thoroughly ripe, so ripe that the greater .portion, of it is- dropping; drop-ping; on ready to drop-from: the trees'? unripe fruit- never makes" satisfactory prunes; it will be light in weight and will contain many "frogs." At pick- ing time the ground under the trees will usually be soft and dusty so that I no harm comes to the fruit in drop- I ping to the ground. The fruit is gath- I crcd from the ground into bushel Ij baskets or boxes, loaded onto wag- K ons, and at once hauled to the dryer, as evaporators are called, and at once H put into the grading room. The fruit W is usually gathered three times; the fjf first gathering commences when a con- Ij sidcrablc portion of the fruit has m dropped, and will usually consist only ft of fallen fruit, sometimes, however, fcf, the trees are given a gentle shaking "L and all that falls goes with the first Ij gathering. A stccond gathering will th follow in a few days,' again gently Iff shaking the trecs. The third and last ill gathering will 'include all the late, M small, and immature fruit, some of whiqh it will be necessary to hand 1 1 pick or knock off with poles. This 4jf grade ia last to run through the dry- I er, and had better not be mixed with I the best fruit. ! After the green fruit is gathered it j ia passed on to the- dipping tanks. p. These tanks, two in number, arc con- ( veniently located at the -end of the K room and -on, a level with or a little. abovc the. ftqor. The tanks will hold' J, from forty to fifty gallons, the first I cpntauiing the lye ba,th, the other the J clean' water for rinsing the fruit. These tanks' are-usuajly placed side by J side, or at least only separated by a j dripping board on which the basket J stands for 'half's minute or so after j leaving the lye bath and before being rinsed. The lye bath is kept almost at the boiling point, and is composed rf two pounds of concentrated lye to twenty gallons of water, as the water in the bath i. reduced it is added to from time to ?imc more water and more lye. The operator uses his judgment in the matter, if the bath is doing good work, i. c,; rutting the ( skin with a minimum amount of im- I mcrsion, the bath is alnght; if this 1 ' not the case, more lye is added. g From time to time the whole bath is renewed, as it becomes heavily eharg- ft cd with paraffin bloom of the fruit A and with fruit juices. The rinsing m bath, is ibetter kept hot, but some- M times it is not so, and the water is S wmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmtmmmtmt 'I renewed from time to time. There f arc various ways of heating the lye i. tank. Some arc large kettles set in If brick or over a firebox and arc heated Xf after the manner of a feed cooker; ' others have a coil of steam pipe con- ! - nectcd with a boiler outside the build-lb build-lb ing. In places where the fruit is dried with steam it will be found convenient con-venient to run a coil in from the boil-f boil-f cr to the lye tank. As a matter -of ( fact no two dipping tanks arc fitted up in the sarnie way, and the arrange ment will be largely a matter of con-7 con-7 . vcmcncc. r Not all prunes arc dipped. Silvers arc rarely ever dipped1, the skins being considered thin enough to admit of rapid evaporation of moisture from the fruit. French prunes arc not commonly dipped. Italian prunes with their rhinoceros hides have to be dipped to cut the skin sufficiently to allow water to pass off quickly. There can be no question but that it would be better if we could get along without dipping pjiunjes, for i thcu is some objection to-the use of lye as an article of diet, yet the amount of lye left on a well rinsed prune is so infinitesimal as to be hardly worth consideration. I asked I the women who were spreading the j newly dipped prunes on the trays I whether the lye on the prunes affected L tlveir h nds. They said, ''No, there is J no lye left on die prunes." j 'jkin. vs. Dipping. j Pricking prunes to effect the same I purpose as dipping, viz., to cut the skin in such a way as to allow of rapid rvaporation of moisture from the fruit, has not come into general practice in Washington. In California Califor-nia and in soime parts of Oregon pricking machines arc common. The arrangement consists of an oscillating table studded with needles1 over which the prunes arc passed. The needles puncture and slit the skins making it possible for the moisture to escape rapidly. In some pricking machines the fruit is sprayed with warm water as it passes over the needles, in others oth-ers the fruit is carried! on an endless chain arrangement and passes through a warm water bath thoroughly cleansing cleans-ing it. There is apt to be more drip in the evaporator from the prunes that have been pricked from the fact thai the cells of the fruit arc more broken and lacerated, but the coagulation coagu-lation of the exudations soon close up the punctures leaving the fruit glazed and of a darker color than dipped fruit. Both methods have their advocates, advo-cates, each claiming the finest fruit is made by their process. The practical men with whom I talked on the matter mat-ter seemed to be of the opinion that lye dipping is better for our condition, condi-tion, even though it is a little more expensive than the pricking .process. It is claimed) for the pricking process that no frogs or "bloaters" are possible pos-sible under the treatment. I know of no pricking machines at present in use in the state. While it is probably true that the amount of lye left on a dipped prune is too small to consider, yet there is considerable antipathy among prune growers to the practice of dipping, and they woqld gladly welcome some other means to the same end. There. has recently been introduced into California and some parts of Oregon what is known as The Steam Chamber. Into this chamber, containing steam at a very low pressure the trays containing con-taining the prunes arc put for ten or fifteen minutes. It is said that this answers the same purpose as pricking and dipping, and that the fruit so treated will dVy heavier, and make just as good a product. It is recommended recom-mended that the pressure in the steam chamber shall not toe greater than pound. Dipping in Boiling Water. To effect the same purpose as lye dipping, pricking, steaming, etc., is practiced by at least one man on the west coast. In an article on prune evaporating, read before the Idaho State Horticultural Society by Mr. J. H. Montcith, Eugene, Oregon, he gave the following method as practiced prac-ticed by him: "The prunes arc gathered from under un-der the trees when thoroughly ripe, ' brought to the evaporator, rinsed in cold water to remove all dirt and dust, then place in wire baskets and dipped in boiling water for two minutes." min-utes." It is claimed this answers all purposes of lye dipping and will make the skin of even an Italian tender, and leaves no bad effects on the fruit. From the foregoing diverse practices prac-tices it will be seen how experimental is this stage of prune drying. All driers feel that it is very necessary to do something to the skin of the Italian prune before putting it in the evaporator, otherwise it would take too long to dry,, and1 when dried it would offer considerable resistance to the teeth, but as to which ia. the best H way to overcome this toughness, of H hide is still an open question. H The next process after dipping, is H to -evaporate the fruit, and here is H where the greatest diversity of opin- H ion prevails amongst prune growers. H To properly present the subject, it H will be necessary to consider the H styles of M Evaporators. M In common use throughout the H state. First and most numerous is H the old box dryer. This is a hot air H dryer, and is simply a box of any dc- H sired size set over a pit in which hot H air is conducted back and forth, in I brick flues or in slrect iron pipes. The I general arrangement of these box I cV.ycrs is very similar, so far as I U have examined them, though they may differ a little in detail. Two par- allel brick walls about five or six feet H high, and of the desired length,, usual- ly about twenty feet, at one end,, be.- I tween the walls the furnace is built; I at the other -end is the chimney. It is fl common to run a brick flue from the furnace to the far end, then return I the heat in sjicet iron pipes to the front end and back again to the chimr fl ncy, the object being to get the great- I est benefit from the heat before it .1 passes up the chimney. Cold air is 'I let in near the bottom of the brick I wall on iboth sides through holes 8x6 inches at intervals of four or five .1 feel; the air is heated in its passage I over the flues, and thence passc's.on I up through the trays containing the I fruit. The trays in the various dry- ers differ a little in size but are com- 1 Continued on pagol4. 1 HORTICULTURE 1 1 This Department is Edited by Prof. R. S. Northrop. Continued from page 3. monly about 2x4 feet; they arc made with a wooden frame and wire bottom; bot-tom; the best size of mesh in the wire is from M to an inch. Compartments Compart-ments each the width of a tray and high -enough to accommodate from twelve to twenty trays and stacked one above the other, each tray resting rest-ing on strips on which it slides. Trays arc put in from both sides of the dryer and as a means of conserving conserv-ing the beat a number of little doors arc hung on each apartment, each opening in front of two trays, thus allowing these two to be handled without exposing the others to the cold air. Some dryers arc arranged so that tlvc space between the trays is about two inches, others allow more room than this; there seems to be no unanimity of opinion as to the correct cor-rect space between the trays. While on a visit to Dr. J. R. Caldwell, Cald-well, Portland, Oregon, this fall, I had the privilege of inspecting the first dryer built in Oregon. It is very much on the same lines just described. de-scribed. The old dryer is still doing duty and at the time of my visit was full of silver prunes. One peculiarity peculiari-ty of the old dryer is that it has no ventilating chute such as arc found on the improved dryers. Dr. Caldwell dispenses with the sulphuring chamber cham-ber and burns sulphur in the box dryer dry-er which answers all purposes, ibut is somewhat disagreeable to the operator. oper-ator. Tlvcrc arc numerous modifications of the old' box dryer; some of these have been built with the trays slanting slant-ing at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and with tin reflectors to throw the current of hot air under each tray. These have not always been satisfactory, and the next year will sec some more modifications to suit the whims of the owner. It .would seem that the old box dryer has seen its best day, and that it will soon have to give place to more modern dryers. Extract from Bulletin Bul-letin 38, by J. A. Balmer, of the Washington Wash-ington Agricultural Experiment Station. |