m*- w - Clpdigital.org

818 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
stacked on top of one another and protected
from rain by a cover of oilcloth,
canvas, or roofing-paper. Such trays
can be home-made
with wood strips two
inches wide and
three-fourths inch
thick (for the sides
and ends), and bottoms
of laths spaced
o n e-e i g h t h inch
apart for free passage
of air.
Suppose, however,
that you have
an electric fan in
the house. It will
do the work all
r i g h t. You ca n
place your sliced or
chopped vegetables
in a stack of shallow
trays with wire-
A Kitchen Stove Drier with
a Flue
mesh bottoms, and turn on the wind. As the "forced draft" of air passes
over them, it sucks the moisture out of them so rapidly that in twenty-four hours
or less they are reduced to the requisite condition of desiccation.
There are cookstove vegetable-driers on the market. One type consists of a
series of shallow trays on which the slices and cut scraps are meant to be spread—
never too thick, be it observed, lest the passage of air through them be impeded.
That is to say, the layers
(as in the fan-drying process
) must not be too deep.
The trays are placed in a
skeleton framework, one
above another, so that the
whole affair forms a sort of
box through which the
heated air from the stove
rises, carrying off moisture.
THIS IS THE IDEAL MACHINE FOR SLICING SWEET POTATOES; IT ALSO CAN BE USED
TO ADVANTAGE WITH ONIONS, BEETS, TURNIPS, AND PARSNIPS