ARTIFICIAL DRYING

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 4, 5 July 1922, Page 3

ARTIFICIAL DRYING

DEHYDRATION IN THE FRUIT INDUSTRY A NEW ZEALAND INVENTOR'S | WORE IN. OTHER PARTS. ! Recently some attention has been given in this country to the artificial drying of timber, as an economic improvement upon natural seasoning; and an equal or even greater interest is likely to be shown in the modem scientific artificial drying (dehydration) of fruit and vegetables. In United States fruit districts, both sun-drying (as in California) and dehydration (as in Oregon) are in successful practice, but in New, Zealand, not so rich in the sun-drying qualities of' California and, Australia, it is maintained that economic drying of fruit and vegetables will necessarily have to be carried on by artificial methods. : The contention is that the New Zealand fruit-growing industry needs an up-to-date fruit-drying branch, because in that way surplus fruit and fruit. of second "grade can be utilised profitably to both grower and consumer, instead of being —as now—wasted, ,or sent into the market in disturbing competition with firstgrade fruit. Inconsistency in quality and in quantity demoralises markets; therefore to keep unsuitable fruit out of the local market is desirable, and to keep it sut of the export market is essential. To some extent, the glutting of fruit markets has been eased by tEe adoption of cool storage methods; but dehydration,1 it is contended, is necessary if both gluts and wastes are to be eliminated or reduced. If the orchardist and the fruit merchant can depend on a dehydration demand as well as on a fresh-fruit demand; supplies and demands can be established at no higher cost to the consumer, and probably at the' lower cost that a greater utilised output would permit. ■ '■• -■

_ A Not ZealaAder, Mr. J. H. Morton, is inventor of the Morton Efficiency Dehydrator. Many u years ago, while waiting, as a lad, to become an apprentice in the Newmarket Railway Workshops, Auckland, he took temporary employment at a flaxmill in the Auckland provincial district, and there was employed in_ spreading New Zealand flax (phormium tenax) in the fields for sun-drying. Nearly a quarter of a century later, Mr. Morton, by that time an expert in artificial drying, was employed in the Old Country to erpedite the drying of Irish flax, which (as the basis of linen used for aeroplane wings) had become an essential article in the Great War waged against Germany. Dehydration replaced the old uncertain method of sun-drying and opened a new era in the flax industry. Another war service performed by the New Zealamder was vegetable preservation (by means of his own process) in the south-eastern counties of England, at a time when every plot in the country was mobilised to resist the submarine war of attritioE and starvation. Between his New Zealand flax experience and his Irish flax development, Mi. Morton had travelled far as an engineer, and he is an associate member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, England. In the last eighteen months he has been busy in the fruit districts, of Australia, and by arrangement with Mir.. C. J. Degaris, of Mildura fame, Mr. Morton designed and directed the erection at the Kendenup closer settlement area, West Australia, of the first dehydrator' built on hia own system, south of the Equator, housed in a brick building of 100 ft x 50ft. The engineer was racing with the ripening Kendenup crop, and fifty-seven days after starting work the first dried apples issued from the plant. The administrator of the Degaris Kendenup (W.A.) Development Company, Ltd., Mr. Prank J. Coote, wrote to Mr. Morton: "I look upon you as one of the finest organisers and managers of labour that it has been my privilege to meet. . . . The output of the plant exceeded your estimates, and I feel we have a dehydrator that will be exceedingly low in maintenance and working- costs. ..." i Mr. Morton is supervising the equipment of dehydrating factories in Queensland and New South Wales,' and has been retained to do similar work in Tasmania. His system embraces the drying of meat as well as of fruit and vegetables, and both in the drying and in the reconditioning for table, use he claims complete success.