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DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

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BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE \ sens
COMMITTEE ON-AGRICULTURE AND FORE
UNITED STATES SENATE

SIXTY-FIFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON

S. 3665

A BILL TO ENABLE THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE TO

ESTABLISH PLANTS IN CONNECTION WITH LAND-GRANT

COLLEGES FOR THE DRYING OR DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS
AND VEGETABLES, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry

Y

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1918

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY.

THOMAS P. GORE, Oklahoma, Chairman.

GEORGE BD. CHAMBERLAIN, Oregon. FRANCIS E. WARREN, Wyoming.
ELLISON D. SMITH, South Carolina. CARROLL S. PAGE, Vermont.

HOKE SMITH, Georgia. ASLE J. GRONNA, North Dakota.
MORRIS SHEPPARD, Texas. GEORGE W. NORRIS, Nebraska.

JOSEPH E. RANSDELL, Louisiana. WILLIAM S. KENYON, Iowa.

WILLIAM H. THOMPSON, Kansas. JAMES W. WADSWORTH, Jr., New York.

ED. 8S. JOHNSON, South Dakota.
JOHN B. KENDRICK, Wyoming.
J. Roy THoMPson, Clerk.
2

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1918.

Unitep States SENATE,
CoMMITTEE on AGRICULTURE AND Forestry,
Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to call at 2.80 o’clock p.m., in room
No. 826, Senate Office Building, Senator Thomas P. Gore, presiding.

Present: Senators Gore (chairman), Smith of South Carolina,
Smith of Georgia, Sheppard, Ransdell, Gronna, and Norris.

The committee proceeded to consider the bill (S. 3665), as follows:

[S. 3665, Sixty-fifth Congress, second session.]

A BILL to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to establish plants in connection with land-
grant colleges for the drying or dehydration of fruits and vegetables, and for other
purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Represerttatives of the United States
of Amcrica in Congress assembled, That $250,000, or so much thereof as may be
necessary, is hereby appropriated, out of any moneys in the Treasury not other-
wise appropriated, to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to establish plants
for the drying or dehydration of vegetables, fruits, and other edible products,
in connection with the land-grant colleges in the several States: Provided, That
the Secretary of Agriculture may establish such plant at some other location in
any particular State whenever in his judgment the public interest would be
subserved thereby: Provided further, That the Secretary of Agriculture may,
in his discretion, establish such plant in any particular State in cooperation
with States, counties, municipalities, individuals, or associations not organized
for profit, in which case the Secretary of Agriculture shall not pay more than
one-half of the cost of establishing such plant.

The Cuarrman. Mr. Horst, who will make the first statement,
comes to Washington, as I understand, accredited by Gov. Stephens,
of California. I believe you bring a letter from Gov. Stephens to
the President?

STATEMENT OF MR. E. CLEMENS HORST, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.

Mr. Horst. Yes, sir. Here it is. ;
(The letter referred to by Mr. Horst is here printed in full as fol-

lows :)
STATE oF CALIFORNIA,
Sacramento, December 29, 1917.
Hon. Wooprow WILSON,
The President, Washington, D. C. a

Sim: This will introduce to you Mr. E. Clemens Horst, of California, who
desires to take up with you the question of drying vegetables by the people of
the United States for use in their homes and by the United States Army and
Navy.

I Aatiesedbonnd Mr. Horst is willing to give without charge to the Government
and is willing to teach to a great number of people without any profit to him-
self the process of drying the vegetables which he will show you. :

4 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

The conservation of food and the supply of our people and our military
forces is so vital, and Mr. Horst’s ideas seem so worthy of careful investigation,
that I specially request an audience for him and a careful consideration of
his plans.

Very truly, yours,
Wm. D. STEPHENS, Governor.

Mr. Horsr. This letter was presented to President Wilson by
Senator McNary who gave to the President with the letter a line
of a dozen or more of my dried vegetables. President Wilson ac-
knowledge the same by letter as follows:

THE WHITE HOovwsE,
Washington, February 5, 1918.

My Dear Senator McNary: It was very kind and thoughtful of you to send
me the dried tomatoes and mixed vegetables for soup. I am looking forward
with pleasure to sampling them. I am very glad indeed to see every sort of
effort made for the conservation of food and this particular form of that effort
interests me very much.

Cordially and sincerely, yours,
Wooprow WItLsoN.

Hon. CHanrres L. McNary,

United States Senate.

The Cuarrwan. What is your business, Mr. Horst?

Mr. Horsr. I am a merchant and farmer and I own and operate
dehydrating plants for vegetables, fruits, etc.

The Cuarrman. Mr. Horst, first let me say that I would like
you to state something of the effects and results of dehydration on
vegetables and fruits; something about the desirability of using
dehydration in preserving vegetables and fruits; something about
the history of the process, describing the process itself, and make
a statement of the expense connected with the building and equip-
ment of plants, and so forth.

Mr. Horst. The drying of vegetables is a very old proposition.
It was supplanted something like 30 or 40 years ago by the can-
ning industry, and very little attention was paid to the question of
drying of vegetables. The Boer war, and the Alaska excitement of
1898, somewhat revived the industry, and a great amount of vege-
tables were dried at that time, though the process was rather crude,
but crude as it was it was successful, and the products were used
then. What was left over, for instance, from the Boer war was
successfully used in the present war by the British Government, and
that has been after the lapse of a period of about 18 years: and I cite
that to show the keeping quality of the dried vegetables.

Since that time, and particularly within the last six or eight
months, there has been a great deal of experimental work done on
the subject of the drying of vegetables, and up to the present time
the work has gone along so far that the product to-day, in my
opinion, is fully equal when cooked to the fresh product, as one gets
it in the city, taking, of course, into consideration that vegetables,
before they reach the consumer, have undergone quite a delay in han-
dling, shipping, and rehandling, and they become aged by time; and
in keeping fresh vegetables, say, from the harvest time to the con-
suming time in the middle of the winter is a long time, during which.
the vegetables more or less depreciate. The dehydrating process
takes that vegetable fresh from the farm, immediately dries it, and
dries it in such a way that substantially the freshness of the farm is

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 5

perverts and in my opinion and in the opinion also of the very
nest hotels of the United States, who have made extensive trials of
these recently made products, they are fully as good as fresh veg-
etables.

I have an abundance of letters here from a number of the finest
hotels in the country—for instance, the Ritz-Carlton, of New York,
and the Willard, of Washington, who have tried out the product. A
number of our hotels in San Francisco are using dried vegetables in
place of fresh vegetables, where they have the fresh vegetables the
year around.

The Cuarrman. Will you put those in the record ?

Mr. Horsr. I will, with pleasure. . ee

(The letters referred to by Mr. Horst are here printed in full as
follows :)

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
BuREAU OF CHEMISTRY,
Washington, D. C., January 25, 1918.
Mr. E. Cremens Horst,
San Francisco, Cal.:

Dear Sir: In response to your request for an opinion as to the value of dried
vegetables, will state that we have been investigating this subject for a number
of months, and find that nearly all vegetables and fruits can be dried success-
fully if the quality of the raw material and the methods of preparing the
material for drying, the drying, and the packing of the material after drying
are satisfactory. Products can be obtained which retain their distinctive
properties.

The saving in containers and freight effected by drying, combined with the
attractiveness of the dried products, makes us realize that we have here an
industry of importance and value.

Respectfully,
Cart L. AtsBere, Chief.

WasuHinetTon, D. C., January 15, 1918.
Mr. E. CLemMEens Horst,
San Francisco, Cal.

Drar Sir: I am deeply interested in the industry of desiccated vegetables
and fruits. I have seen the samples of the products which you are exhibiting,
and I believe that the general use of such products by the general public would
be highly beneficial. The rapidity at which the samples are dried and the low
temperatures employed secure the full value of these products insofar as their
vitamin and antiscorbutic properties are concerned.

‘Since vegetables and fruits contain from 80 to 95 per cent of water, the cost
of transportation is enormously reduced by the use of dried products. At the
same time, the dried products can be easily kept in cheap containers, and there
is no danger of spoilage. In my opinion, these products are in a splendid form

. for use by our soldiers and sailors. They should be used in much larger quan-
tities than vegetables are used at the present time for the purpose of preserving
to a greater degree the health and vitality of those who eat them.

Sincerely, yours,
H. W. WILeEy.

THE BILTMORE,
New York, February 7, 1918.
The E. CLEMENS Horst Co.,
San Francisco, Cal.

Dear Sirs: We have used a number. of your dried vegetables, including
tomatoes, at the Biltmore, and they proved to be very satisfactory. :

The results convince us that dehydration is an excellent method for preserv-
ing vegetables for use in all climates and particularly on account of the small
space that is required for storage in shipment.

Very truly,
JOHN McH. Bowman, President.

6 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

Ritrz-CaRgLTon HOTEL,
New York, January 15, 1918.
H. CLEMENS Horst Co.,

San Francisco, Cal.

GENTLEMEN: After trying your different dried and powdered vegetables, I
take pleasure in advising you that we found them in perfectly sound condition.

If cooked properly, they are far superior in taste and more advantageous
than preserved canned vegetables, as ‘they retain all through an excellent flavor
of fresh vegetables.

I can safely say I see a fine opening on the market for your useful new
products.

Yours, very truly,
ALBERT KELLER, General Manager.

HoTe, MANHATTAN,
New York, February 11, 1918.
The E. CLeMens Horst Co.,
San Francisco, Cal.

Dear Sir: After repeated trials of a variety of your dried vegetables, in-
cluding tomatoes, at the Hotel Manhattan, we found them very satisfactory, and
are convinced that vegetables preserved in this form are admirable for use when
seasonable, fresh vegetables are not obtainable.

Very truly,
P. B. Bopen, Vice President.

THE NEW WILLARD,
Washington, D. C., December 14, 1917.
E. CLemens Horst Co.,
San Francisco, Cal.

Dear Sirs: Have tried both samples of dried tomatoes, which I have obtained
of Mr. Paul Boden, and have found them excellent.

Kindly advise where these goods can be obtained, also prices on same.

Would also like to have directions for preparing dried vegetables, whether
they should be soaked a length of time or not.

The above information will be appreciated by,

Yours, very truly,
C. E. Scuarrer, Steward.

THE FAIRMONT,
San Francisco, December 3, 1917.
E. Cremens Horst Co.,

San Francisco, Cal.

GENTLEMEN: I have sampled your dried vegetables, tomatoes, puree, etc., and
have found them to be one of the very best I have ever tried, and I shall be
pleased to recommend them at every opportunity.

Very respectfully,
Martin GINvER, Chef.

{Bxtract.]

St. Fraxcis Hospitat,
San Francisco, Cal., December 22, 1917.
E, Cremens Horst Co.,
San Francisco, Cal.

GENTLEMEN: I am more than pleased with the samples sent to the hospital,
and consider them a splendid article.

I wish to add that the drying does not seem to change the flavor in the least.
It seems impossible to believe that they are not a fresh article after they are
cooked.

Very truly, yours,
Manet B. Wess, Hospital Dietitian.

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. i

{Extract.]

CALIFORNIA STATE Board or HEALTH,
Bureau OF TUBERCULOSIS,
Sacramento, November 16, 1917.
Mr. Cremens Horst,
San Francisco, Cai.

Dear Sim: I wish to thank you for the samples that you sent us, and to tell
you that I have never tasted better tomato soup than we made from the
powder.

Yours, very sincerely,
E. L. M. Tare-THomeson, Director.

[Extract.]

San Francisco Hospirat.
San Francisco, December 14, 1917.
EB. CLEMENS Horst Co.. i

San Francisco, Cul,

GENTLEMEN: Referring to sample of dried tomatoes recently submitted, beg

to advise that our dietitian finds that same made a very excellent soup. It is

our belief that this product would be particularly advantageous for use in the

Army, and would solve, to a considerable extent, the problem of transportation
of large quantities of food.

Respectfully.
R. G. Broprick, Superintendent.

[Extract.]

Hore, Sr. Praxcrs,
San Franesico, December 14, 1917.
Mr. E. Clemens Horst's Julienne and Brussel sprouts (dry) have the flavor
and taste of fresh vegetables after being prepared same way as fresh, and
recommend them very highly.
Victron HIirtzcer.

[Extract.]

Hore St. FRANcIs,
San Francisco, November 10, 1917.
E. Cremens Horst Co.,
San Francisco, Cal.
GENTLEMEN: For the first time in my experience as culinary chef and cook I
have used one can of your dried powdered tomatoes and served it the whole
day. I can only say one word—“ excellent.”

Yours, very truly, e
Victor HirTzLer.

[Extract.]

PALACE HOTEL,
. San Francisco, Cal., November 28, 1917.
E. CLemEens Horst Co.,
San Francisco, Cal.

GENTLEMEN: J have given your tomato preparation, both the dried as well
as the powdered forms, a good trial and am glad to state that your products
are fine. They may be used with very good results in all such dishes where
tomatoes are used.

Wishing you the very best success, I am,

Very truly
‘ E. BURGENNINTER,

Chef, Palace Hotel.

8 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

[Iextract.]

San Francisco, December 15, 1917.
Mr. E. CLemens Horst, City.
Dear Sm: We are pleased to advise you that we sampled the dried Julienne
vegetables and prepared very palatable vegetable soup from same.
Very respectfully,
TrcHAU TAVERN Co.,
A. C. Morgison, Manager.

San Francisco, November 21, 1917.
Messrs. E. CLEMENS Horst Co.,
San Francisco, Cal.

Dear Sirs: I have tried your tomato dry powder in our kitchen and have
found it very satisfactory. Have no doubt that it would be very useful and
economical.

Very truly, yours,
TaITt-ZINKAND CAFE,
By G. MirHan, Chef.

Curr Hore.,
San Francisco, December 15, 1917.
Mr. E. CLEMENS Horst,
San Francisco.

Dear Sir: In reply to your communication of the 14th. will say the Julienne
soup mixture you sent us makes exceptionally good soup, so much so that we are
interested in the other articles you have on the market, and have instructed our
buying steward, Mr. Barta, to get in touch with you.

Yours, very truly.
H. S. Warp, Assistant Jfanager.

[Extract.]

San Francisco, December 19, 1917.
Mr. E. Cremens Horst,
San Francisco, Cal.

Dear Str: Replying to yours of the 14th instant, we beg to advise that we
have to-day cooked the Julienne you wished us to test and find it exeellent in
every respect. |

Yours, very truly,
San FRANCISCO COMMERCIAL CLUB,
PROSPER REITER, V/ecnaqer.

THE OLYMPIC CLUR,
San Francisco, Decenuher 28, 1917.
E. CLEMENS Horst (o., >
San Firioeisen, Cal.

GENTLEMEN: We received your sample of Julienne soup mixture the early
part of the month and can particularly recommend same. The vegetables are
also the finest we have ever tried, and, with proper hiundling, they seem to
retain the flavor and appearance of the fresh vegetables. , ’

Yours, truly,
J. HH. Nicowt. Superintendent of Service.

McKINLEY ORPHANAGE,
San Francisco, January 15, 1918,
E. CLtemMEns Horst ('o.., :
Nan Francisco,

Dear Sir: We received the sample of your dried soup vegetables. We have
used the sample and find it excellent—just as good as fresh vegetables. A little
later on we will get in a supply of your dried vegetables,

Yours, truly,
LIntian R. CourNnrEEn,
Per E. NIExp.

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 9

San Francisco, January 9, 1918.
E. CLEMENS Horst Co., San Francisco.

GENTLEMEN: We received your letter, together with sample of your dried
vegetables. We tried them at vour suggestion, and we want to say that we
‘found them very satisfactory; the flavor was full delicious, with no trouble
to prepare. If they can be supplied at the same price as fresh vegetables, or
very near it, we should think they would be a wonderful addition to Army,
Navy, and any camps; also, a great solution for the use of overproduction in
the country. One reads of boatloads of vegetables Gumped in the bay for no
other reason than to keep up the prices. Why not dry them? They are not
offered to charity, I notice, when the markets are glutted.

Thanking you for your favor in bringing these vegetables to our notice, and
wishing you all success,

Yours, very truly,
CALIFORNIA HoME FOR GIRLS,
ARNETTE BLACKBURNE,
% Barecutive Secretary.

THe Strrarroxny Hote,
Chicago, January 23, 1918.
‘EL Cremient Horst Co..
Sau Francisco, Cal.

GENTLEMEN: After having given your dry vegetables a thorough trial, I am
pleased to state to you that they are very satisfactory, and as soon as you have
them in quantities so that they will be put on the market, will you please send
me a price list. and I shall be glad to give you an order. :

I tind that the flaver is much fresher after they have been prepared than that
of canned goods, and it is much easier to keep and to store.

Yours, respectfully,
G. A. Risser, Chef.

My. Horsr. The testimonials include practically all the highest-
class hotels, hospitals, and clubs in San Francisco. The recommenda-
tions and use of dried vegetables by the best San Francisco trade is
of particular importance, in that California always has fresh vege-
tables.

So much for the question of quality.

As to the subject of expense, of course the dried vegetable is not
going to be as cheap as the fresh vegetable, because there is the cost
of drying; that is. if you take the fresh vegetable in season and
dry it you have the additional expense of drying the product. But
when vou take the vegetable out of season, then the dried product
will be cheaper than the fresh product and far cheaper than the
canned goods. For. example, & case of canned tomatoes that costs
roughly $4—solid-packed tomatoes—two dozen tins, which weigh
2 pounds each, the gross weight of the case being 60 pounds,
and you have $4 for a case of tomatoes containing a total of not
over 15 cents original cost of tomatoes. In other words, you have
spent $3.85 to preserve 15 cents’ worth of tomatoes.

The same illustration holds good in a number of other products
to the same extent, and to a lesser extent in all vegetables that are
canned. The cost of dried vegetables is the cost of drying plus
the cost of the fresh vegetables; in other words, in round figures,
the cost of dried vegetables is less than double the original farm
price of fresh vegetables, while with canning it takes approximately
twenty times and often more than twenty times the cost of the fresh
vegetable to make the cost of the canned product.

The Cuarrman. That is 2 against 20.

Mr. Horst. Those are round figures. The figures vary according
to different products.

10 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

On the question of weight and transportation, 2 60-pound case
of canned tomatoes, when the tomatoes are dried, gives you In round
figures 24 pounds of the dried product. ,

The same illustration roughly holds good of other vegetables, like
spinach, and perhaps sprouts, and all these other light-weight vege-
tables that contain much moisture say, something like 75 to 95
per cent moisture. ; ;

When you have canned goods, vou have to ship not only the
canned goods but you have to ship an equal number of cars of
empty cans to the cannery. Icr instance, 30 catloads of canned
tomatoes would be equal to 1 carload of dried tomatoes. And you
take your 30 carloads of canned tomatoes—— :

Senator Saarxn of Georgia. In weight, but not in bulk?

Mr. Horst. In equivalent quantity; that is, if you take the to-
matoes of 30 carloads of canned tomatoes and dry them you will
have 1 carload of dried tomatoes. ;

Senator Smirn of Georgia. In bulk-—in space. I mean—it would
only occupy that much space? i

Mr. Horst. They will occupy that much spac; yes, sir.

Senator Sarit of Georgia. That is what I mean—take no more
space. :

SMG. Horst. The contents of 80 carloads of canned tomatoes——
Senator Smirn of Georgia (interposing). Can be put in 1 carload.
Mr. Horst. Can be put in 1 carload; yes, sir. When you have

your 80 carloads of canned tomatoes, you have to add on another 30
cars for the movement of the empty cans from the can factory to
the cannery. That makes 60 cars.

Then, again, when you have in a carload of canned tomatoes
10,000 pounds of tin and 14,000 pounds of lumber, a total of 24,000
pounds. Then you have the movement of the tin-making material
from the mines to the tinplate factory, and the movement of the tin-
plate from the tinplate factory to the tin-can factory; and the move-
ment of the logs to the sawmill and of the lumber to the box-shook
factory, and the box shooks to the cannery, which gives you a grand
total of about 105. carloads as against 1 carload of dried product.

Senator Ranspetz. Is that one carload of dried product just as
valuable as the other for human consumption?

Mr. Horsr. Yes, sir. And for that purpose I have brought plenty
of samples that anybody and everybody may try them. These prod-
ucts have been tried now by the Walter Reed Hospital here for the
last few weeks since I have been here, and they were tried at the
Washington Barracks within the last few days. They have been
tried all along the line and every one certifies to the excellence of
the product. All are agreed that they are better than canned goods,
and most of them agree that they are as good as the fresh vegetables
in season and better than fresh vegetables out of season.

Senator Smirn of Georgia. They are as good as the fresh vege-
tables, unless you get. the fresh vegetables right off the farm. If
the fresh vegetables have to be delayed, as I understand you, in
transportation and distribution in a city, from a farm some little
distance away. then they are just as good as that kind of fresh vege-
tables. :

Mr. Horst. That is exactly it.

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 11

Senator Norris. What about the expense of the preparation of the
plant, the drying machinery, etc. ?

The Cuarrman. Senator Norris, would you mind, before you pro-
ceed, allowing me to continue for a moment. I want him to illus-
trate the shipping in order to get the sequence. ;

You were telling, Mr. Horst, about the expense of shipping to-
matoes to Havre, France.

Mr. Horst. If you take this case of tomatoes, that would cost
you, say, $4 in New York, by the time you shipped that case to
Havre, at the present freight rates and at the present war-risk rates,
it will make your deliveries in Havre, roughly, $7 per case, while if
you take this product in the dried state you have got a correspond-
ingly less freight rate according to the difference in bulk, which, as
I say, is less than 5 per cent of the bulk. And by having a lower
cost in the first place, you have a lower war-risk insurance, and the
differences become greater the greater the distance that you move
yous product and the greater freight rates that you have to contend
with. :

Just before I left California I saw a shipment of 50 pounds of
green sprouts from California to some point East, where the express
rate is 12 cents per pound. In order to ship these 50 pounds of green
sprouts to the East they had to ship a 100-pound cake of ice and
pay the expressage at the rate of 12 cents per hundred pounds on the
ice and the 50 pounds of sprouts, making 150 pounds at 12 cents a
pound, which made $18, to ship this 50 pounds of sprouts. The whole
50 pounds could have been dried and shipped as 3 pounds by parcel
post at a cost of 35 or 36 cents instead of $18 for expressage alone,
and not counting the cost of the sprouts and ice. So that the differ-
ences in cost for vegetables, no matter how you figure them, is in
favor of the dried product; and, of course, when you start in figuring
‘the movement of fresh products by express the figures are stagger-
ing. When you take these sprouts and dry them in any place where
they happen to have been grown, you dry them fresh the same day
you pick them, and you have a product that is substantially equal
to the fresh product, and a product that you know positively is never
going to spoil, at least in a reasonable length of time.

Senator Smirx of Georgia..Then, in shipping fresh vegetables
there is a substantial loss, despite the care used, in the vegetables that
are not kept fresh.

Mr. Horst. It is estimated that of all of the vegetables grown in
the United States, potatoes included, that there is about 40 or 50 per
cent of the product that never reaches the dinner table; those are
the losses between the farm and the consumer and by the consumer.

Under the drying process there is no loss whatever. The entire
product; that is, the sound portion, the edible portion, of the entire
product is saved. :

The Cuarrman. You told me yesterday that something was saved
in the drying process that was lost even in the canning process.

Mr. Horst. In the drying process you save the tops in the gardens
and use them for feeding cattle, and the peelings of the product you
save in the drying process and use them for hog feed; and you have
them at those evaporating plants in sufficient quantity to raise hogs
on the peelings and raise cattle on the tops.

12 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

The Cuamman. You did not quite get in another point—that is,
that there is some kind of salts that are saved. :

Mr. Horst. In all vegetables that are canned the valuable mineral
salts are very largely leached out in the cans. That is the case in
spinach, particularly. If you take spinach and put it in water and
leave it in water two days you will turn the water absolutely black
from the salts. In the canning process, or where the stuff remains in
the cans on an average of six months from one season to the other,
you have lost the very properties that you want to save, and although
you may save in cooking you will put the entire contents into the pot
when you are cooking it, still the salts have been lost to a very large
extent. While in the drying process it is entirely saved.

Senator Ransprty. How do you pack these different vegetables for
preservation and shipment; for instance, tomatoes?

Mr. Horst. We pack them in carton boxes of pasteboard, which
are sufficient for all vegetables, with perhaps the desirability of wrap-
ping tomatoes and onions in the carton, and then having thin paraffin
paper on the outside or inside in order to keep off the moisture. The
tomatoes and the onions will take on moisture after dried, although
they do not take on sufficient to hurt them. I have had onions and
tomatoes exposed to the damp atmosphere of San Francisco for a
period of two months’ time without any injury whatever to the
product, although they have taken on a great deal of moisture. They
take on moisture just so far, and then they stop and they are not
hurt.

The Cuatrman. I do not know whether this process of drying
fruits and vegetables differs from the one used in Germany and
whether it explains to some extent the wonderful power of endurance
of the German people. I understand you know something about-
that.

Mr. Horst. The drying plants in Germany are estimated to be in
number somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000. There were something
like 850 plants before the war, and it is reported—how reliably I do
not know—that they now have close on to 2,000 plants. the purpose
being, of course, to save everything.

aie Cuatrman. And the potatoes—how extensively do they dry
those ?

Mr. Horst. The quantity of potatoes dried in Germany for the last ©
year of which there is official record by our Government is 800.000,000
bushels, which is more than twice the quantity of potatoes that are
raise in the United States per annum: and figuring it on a per
capita basis it is seven times as many potatoes as we raise. On top
of that quantity, of course, Germany raises a very large additional
amount of potatoes. Their crop in 1915, according to our Govern-
ment Yearbook, was, in round figures, 2,000.000.000 bushels, as against
350,000,000 bushels in our country.

The Cuairman. Those are Irish potatoes?

Mr. Horsr. Those are Irish potatoes.

The Cuarrman. Does this process preserve sweet potatoes equally
as well as Irish potatoes?

Mr. Horst. This process will preserve sweet potatoes and Irish
potatoes, and all other products, equally well.

Senator Ranspetu. Are you going to tell us how to do that?

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 13

Mr. Horst. Yes, sir; I am going to tell you everything I know
about it.

The process of doing this is very simple. It involves no patents
whatever—that is, the process itself involves no patent. There are
minor features of it, perhaps, affecting the cost of operation that
are covered by patents, but they can be utterly ignored, as they are
of no value whatever in the general proposition. The business is
very simple; there is no secret about it. The sum and substance of
the proposition is to dry the product quickly, and not too quickly,
and to use only air in doing it. And any plant by which the air is
run through the product in sufficient quantities will dry the product
in proportion to the water-carrying capacity of the air that is passed
through the product. In other words, if you take air at ordinary
humidity, sav, about 75 per cent, there is the 25 per cent left for
water-carrying ability of the air, and at low temperature that water-
carrying capacity is very small, and you would have to drive enor-
mous quantities of air through the product, while by raising the
temperature to, say, 180°, 140°, or 150°, you do absolutely no injury
to the product and you greatly increase the drying capacity of the
air. In other words, say, at 150° you dry roughly about 10 times as
fast as with air at 80°. I have not those figures in my mind, but I
have a memorandum here in my pocket from which I can get the
figures, if you care to have them.

Senator Ranspery. Then there is a drying machine of some kind
that has to be used ?

Mr. Horst. You may call it a machine. It is simply a plant on
which you lay your product on a tray and blow air through it.

Senator Ranspexu. Practically, if I wanted to use it on my farm,
what would I have to do?

Mr. Horst. You would have to get a blower and a steam coil and
a boiler, and heat the steam coil, and pipes to lead the air from the
blower into the room in which the products are contained.

Senator Ranspeti. You have a closed room to put them in.

Mr. Horst. You would have a closed room to put them in, and
by doing it on that plan, and by doing it quickly you avoid the
oxidization of the product; you retain the original freshness in color
or substantially so, and you do your drying without the use of any
sulphur or preservative. These samples that are on the table here
are all the natural products without anything on them, and a product
that anybody can turn out equally well after he has had a very short
course of training.

Senator RanspeLy. What would be the cost of the simplest mecha-
nism or outfit that you could get up?

Mr: Horst. You can get up a home dryer with which you can dry
celery tips and your odds and ends around the house. The Depart-
ment of Agriculture has been working on it; they have the plans,
and they know the cost better than I do.. But it can not be more
than $20, I suppose. Of course you have not much capacity with
such an outfit. For practical business—that is, to run drying on a
scale such as it ought to be done in this country—you will need large
plants, and those plants ought to be distributed throughout the
United States in the agricultural districts to arrange for the different
products.

14 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

Senator Smiru, of Georgia. Does it require a separate plant for
each product ?

Mr. Horst. Oh, no; one plant does everything; the same plant
that dries tomatoes also dries potatoes.

Senator RanspeLy. You mean community plants?

Mr. Horsr. You can call them community plants, so long as you
have the plant, community, individual or corporation.

The Cuarrman. What would be the cost of an economical plant
for uses such as you have described ?

Mr. Horst. You can put up a substantial plant all the way from
$5,000 to $50,000. Of course everything depends upon the kind of
a structure you are going to build to dry in, and if you make your
drying building brick you are going to have a much lower cost of
operation than if you make it of frame, because your brick build-
ing will save your heat that you would otherwise lose in the frame
building; and the other things depend upon the price you are
paying for your fans and the steam coils.

Senator Norris. The steam coils are to heat the air?

Mr. Horsr. They are to heat the air.

The Cyatrmayn. And then you must have steam power to operate
the fans?

Mr. Horsr. We must have power to operate the fans. An auto-
mobile will do, or a little motor will do it. In our plant we use a
boiler for making steam. We run the steam through the steam coil,
and then we use electric power for operating the fan.

Senator Norris. It would not take much power to operate the fan?

Mr. Horst. It would not.

Senator Norris. Then you have to have a place where the air
goes in?

Mr. Horst. Yes, sir.

Senator Norris. A place for it to come out, and passing through
the building it goes over the fruit.

Mr. Horst. Yes, sir.

Senator Norris. That is the whole thing?

Mr. Horsr. That is the whole idea.

Senator Ranspvett. You have got to heat that air somewhere?

Mr. Horst. You heat the air by passing it over the steam coil, and
the whole principle is to heat the air so you do not heat it and lose it.

Senator Norris. But the heating is outside of the building that
has got the fruit in it, I suppose, is it not?

Mr. Horst. The heating plant may be either inside or outside the
building.

Senos Norris. And the fan is put right at the entrance, I pre-
sume ?

Mr. Horsr. Of course, you can supplement that, if you like, by put-
ting further heating coils inside of the building if you want to do
that. In other words, the higher the temperature you work at the
quicker you dry. For every 24° increase in temperature you double
the drying capacity of the air.

Senator Norris. Tell us how long, in a properly equipped plant,
it would take to dry potatoes.

Mr. Horsr. You can dry sliced potatoes all the way from about
two hours to eight hours, according to how thick you lay them and

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 15

and according to the temperature of the air that you are using.
Tomatoes we dry in about 7 to 10 hours.

Senator Ransprxy. You slice them, I suppose.

Mr. Horst. Yes, sir. ‘

Senator Ranspexu. All vegetables have to be sliced up, or practi-
cally all of them?

Mr. Horst. You have to slice your products in order to dry the
vegetables on the inside and core. If you leave a wet place in the
inside of the vegetable, then your vegetable is liable to spoil, and that
has been the mistake of the past,-before that was fully understood,
that the inside of the vegetables—that is, the core—has to be dried,
and when the core is not dried your vegetable will spoil, and when
the core is dried you can not spoil it afterwards.

The Cuarrman. You were telling me about some saving in the
drying of apples under this process, as compared with the old process.

Mr. Horst. There is a great saving in the drying of apples, in this
particular respect, that you get much more for the apples that are
dried by the indoor process than you do for apples which are dried
by the outdoor process, and in that way you get your saving.

The CuarrMan. Was there not some bleaching process that you
told me about?

Mr. Horst. Whenever you dry anything in the open air, like
peaches, pears, or apples, and lay the stuff on trays, the drying
precess is so slow, no matter how hot the sun may be, that the out-
side of the fruit becomes oxidized, and during the exposure there
are flies and bugs and dust and dirt which get on it and damage
the product more or less.

In order to make the product presentable, it is imperative to bleach
it, or you can not dispose of it, the way people look at goods now-
adays. The sulphur bleaching proposition will all be done away
with by this dehydrating process, because there is no need of sulphur,
since you get your first-class product without its use. The danger
of sulphur is not so much in the sulphurous acid that is formed in
the process of the burning of the sulphur, the sulphur smoke. Sul-
phur smoke coming in contact with the food makes sulphurous acid,
and then that is the bleaching agent. Bad as that is, the real
trouble is that it is very difficult to get sulphur that is free from
arsenic, and when you burn sulphur under fruit the arsenic burns
along with the sulphur, and that is immediately precipitated when
it hits anything wet.

The first product it hits when the smoke is cooled, wherever that
happens to be, the arsenic is precipitated, and when this arsenic 1s
precipitated on the lower layers of the fruit, and if perchance some-
body eats the lower layers and gets a little too much arsenic, there
is a funeral in the family. The amount of arsenic, for instance, in
Hakodate sulphur and Sicilian sulphur runs as high as 1 part of
arsenic to 1,500 parts of sulphur. 2

Senator Ranspety. How it is with respect to the Louisiana sul-

hur ?
z Mr. Horsr. Louisiana sulphur is considered pure; that is, free
from arsenic. So is the Nevada sulphur, but we never get any of the
Nevada sulphur, nor do we ever get any of the Louisiana sulphur
out in our part of the country, and the only sulphurs used are the

16 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

Japanese sulphurs. There is one sulphur in Japan, the Bongo,
that is comparatively free from arsenic. But it all has arsenic in it,
even after it has been refined, and to my mind too much of it.

The Cuairman. Can you tell us what has been the experience of
the English Government with reference to the number of drying
operations they have in use?

Mr. Horsr. The official records that come through our Food Ad-
ministration—any they give the information as coming through our
War Department—is to the effect that England uses for its armies
100 pounds of dried vegetables for 6,000 portions of vegetable soup,
and that they feed the vegetable soup to the soldiers five or six days
a week, and with that ration they keep them in first-class health.
The British Government has bought in Canada since the war comn-
menced, in round figures, 44,000,000 pounds of mixed dried vege-
tables and potatoes. On top of that they have secured large sup-
plies in England, where they have converted many of the hop kilns
into vegetable drying plants, and I believe they have put up other
vegetable drying plants.

Senator Norris. Take an apple. I suppose we are all more or less
familiar with dried apples. Will vour process dry an apple so that
it would be as good as a fresh apple?

Mr. Horst. It will dry it so that it will be as good as a fresh apple
cooked. I do not say that any product that is dried and soaked in
water again is going to be as good as fresh, if eaten uncooked.

Senator Norris. How will it compare with the dried apple we are
all familar with, that we used to dry in the sun?

Mr. Horsr. It will be far better than a dried apple that has been
dried in the sun, because the apple drying in the sun takes too long
a time to dry and becomes damaged in the too slow drying.

Senator Ranspevi. Will the apple dried by this process make prac-
tically as good apple pies as the fresh apple?

Mr. Horsr. Substantially as good; yes. The apples dried by this
process bring in the wholesale market 3 cents a pound more than
apples dried in the sun, and when I left San Francisco one of the
largest stores in that city, the Emporium, a department store, was
selling Oregon dried apples, dried by this same process or similar to
this process, and getting 45 cents a pound for them in 1-pound car-
ees sonnet the wholesale price of about 16 cents for the ordinary

ried apple.

Senator Norrrs. One pound of those dried apples would be equiva-
lent to about how many pounds of fresh apples?

Mr. Horst. I have not the conversion figures in my mind now on
apples. I have been working almost entirely upon vegetables, and I
can give you almost all the conversions on vegetables offhand.

Senator Ranspety. Are there any grocery stores in Washington
handling these dried products? :

Mr. Horsr. No, sir; not yet. The handling of the products is the
difficult part of the situation, and it is for that reason I was asked
to come on to Washington to try to interest the Government in two
things: First, for our Army to adopt dried vegetables, and, second,
for our food authorities to make a propaganda so that the people will
know what the products are; that is, to make whatever public tests
are necessary to demonstrate the value of the product, and then have

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 17

the information go officially before the public, so that the public will
ask for it and so the farmers will raise the raw material necessary,
and on that basis it will mean millions upon millions of tons increased
food production by way of vegetables.

Te CuamrMaNn. By this process there are no -perishable products
lost?

Mr. Horst. No, sir. The highly perishable products are converted
into nonperishable products.
ree Rawnspect. No expensive glass vessels are required to hold
them ¢

Mr. Horst. No glass, no cans; pasteboard is all that is needed.

Senator Ransputz. And pasteboard is made of waste products
from the top of trees that would otherwise be thrown away?

Mr. Horst. I do not know

Senator Ranspexi (interposing). It can be made of that material.

Mr. Horsr. I understand it is made of cheap wood pulp.

Senator Gronn.. Do the vegetables preserved by this process lose
their flavor? :

Mr. Horst. Vegetables will not lose their flavor as compared with
cooked vegetables. If you take a raw vegetable, dry it, and then
soak it—that is, put the water back in it—it is not going to taste,
uncooked, the same as the fresh fruit or vegetable does before dried.
But if you take the two products and cook them, then you have the
dried product at least as good as the fresh product, unless, per
chance, you take your fresh product directly on the farm and eat
it on the farm. You get a crispiness and snappiness on the farm
that you do not get in the city.

Senator Gronna. In this tremendous reduction of potatoes, for
instance, which contain a high percentage of alcohol, are any of those
ingredients lost ?

Mr. Horsr. There is absolutely nothing lost.

Senator Smirn of Georgia. All the alcohol, all the liquid, in the
potato is lost by evaporation.

Mr. Horst. You have got Dr. Alsberg here and I would be afraid
to say anything about chemical action in his presence, but it is my
impression that alcohol is not formed in the potato at the time you
are using the potato, and in the drying process the only thing that
is taken out is the water, and the United States Department of
Agriculture, Bulletin No. 841, I believe it is, states that in drying
vegetables water is all that is taken out, and that flavor, texture, and
food value are unimpaired.

Senator Smiru of Georgia. The water is withdrawn then before
the process of producing alcohol from the potato takes place?

Mr. Horst. Yes, sir.

Senator Norris. That is true of every vegetable, is it not?

Mr. Horst. Yes, sir.

Senator Norris. You could get the alcohol out of them, but if vou
dry the potatoes when fresh you would dry them before they hap-
pened to be any alcohol in them?

Mr. Horst. Yes, sir. ;

Senator Gronna. My question, of course, was really this: Has the
ingredient, as I call it, which makes the alcohol, become lost in drying

the potato? :
42291—18——2.

18 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

Mr. Horst. No, sir. You lost absolutely nothing but water, and
you can put the water back, but in putting it back, as I say, if you
are going to compare a vegetable with the water put back with the
same vegetable before it was dried, and eat the thing raw, you are
bound to be disappointed; but if you eat one cooked and the other
cooked you will like one just as well as the other, unless you get the
one fresh at the farm.

Senator Ransprety. I am interested to know whether or not you
could still use these dried vegetables to make alcohol, if you desired ?
_ Mr. Horsr. I believe they use it in Germany to a large extent that
way, but I do not know.

Senator Ransprevy. I imagine so, from what you said.

Senator Gronna. I am intensely interested in that, and I think the
material out of which the alcohol is made is the food product. I
think that is conceded, is it not?

Mr. Horsr. That is a question, I am sorry to say, which is over
my head.

Senator Gronna. What I was about to say is this: If it should ap-
pear that this very material out of which you could make alcohol dis-
appears I think that would be a tremendous loss in food value.

The Cuarrman. Mr. Horst, I wish you would file with your state-
ment these conversion figures, or ratios, the weight of the fresh vege-
table as compared with the dried vegetable.

Mr. Horst. I can give them to you in round figures. For instance,
potatoes, about 6 to 1; cabbage, about 20 to 1; tomatoes, about 20 to
1; spinach, about 18 to 1; turnips, 14 to 1: carrots, about 9to 1. That
gives you the general relation.

Senator Norris. That is bulk?

Mr. Horsr. In weight; and in cubic measurements you can take
‘ your dried products and compress them so that the question of bulk
is entirely eliminated. We press cabbage, onions, spinach, and toma-
toes. I have a little brick of tomatoes here, which weighs seven
ounces, and five of those little bricks is equal to a 60-pound case of
canned tomatoes; and I have the chemist’s report on that quantitative
analysis to confirm those figures.

Senator Smiru of Georgia. Will you state what your interest in
the matter is, what your connection with the proposition is, barring
the interest we all have?

Mr. Horsr. I will tell you my interest frankly. “I have been in the
hop-growing business on the Pacific coast for the last 25 years and
upward, and I have raised as many as 28,000 bales of hops a year,
which is roughly several hundred times as many as the average hop
grower raises, and the hop business has declined. The British Gov-
ernment has put an embargo on the shipment of hops, and 35 per cent
of the hops used to go to England, and the American brewing busi-
ness has declined, and as a result there are more hops on hand than
people want, and I have a large number of hop kilns and farming
lands around these hop kilns. There are in the hands of other
farmers on the Pacific coast approximately 2,500 hop kilns, con-
structed on a different plan from mine, but they can be adapted to my
‘plans. All of these hop fields are in the very richest agricultural dis-
tricts, and if I could find another industry for the hop grower it
would be very good for the entire Pacific coast and it would be good

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 19

for the country, because the same principle that could be worked from
the Pacific coast can be worked in the East, South, and everywhere
else in the United States.

Now, my desire is to make use of my hop kilns and make use of
my lands, and grow vegetables; and unless the Government takes an
interest in the proposition there is no chance of this industry develop-
ing, because of the fact that it is not a patented process and it is not a
secret process.

Senator Smrrx of Georgia. You have no financial interest in any
process for this purpose?

Mr. Horsr. Absolutely none.

Senator Smirn of Georgia. It is just your suggestion that the
Government buy it in the interest of the public generally, without
compensation to anybody, as an incident to trying it?

Mr. Horst. That is exactly it. In fact, I am making the fight
against a number of people who have started in now to take this
general proposition of dehydration and try to make personal prop-
erty of it and make patented claims on it in order to float stock and
in order to queer the whole business before the country. but in any
publicity given to this proposition it ought to be made perfectly
plain that it is a proposition open to all and that anybody can do it.
The benefit I am personally going to get out of it is that I am going
to have better use of my lands than by raising hops.

Senator Smrru of Georgia. In other words, you would make a
market for the product you have not got now.

Mr. Horst. Yes, sir. If we tried to create a market for these
products by advertising it would cost at least $5,000,000 to develop
a dried fruit and vegetable product market to any substantial extent
within two or three years, while if our Government takes hold of it
and advertises it along the line that the product is good—and they
can find out overnight that it is good—and if then the Government
makes a very simple proclamation you will have every housewife
wanting the product, and when every housewife wants products you
can start in.

Senator Ranspety. The consumer is going to derive a wonderful
benefit from the cheapness of it?

Mr. Horsr. The consumer gets the benefit from the cheapness;
the farmer gets the benefit from the better utilization of his lands.
For instance, to-day the growing of vegetables is confined, generally
speaking, to within 2 miles of a city. When you get 3 miles away
from a city you do not see any vegetable farms. I was on a little
motoring trip of some to or three hundred miles in southern Cali-
fornia last December, and when we would get 3 miles from a town
you would see the most beautiful orange groves and the ground
just as clean as a whistle and not a thing being grown between the
trees, if grown even between the young trees, and that land lies ab-
solutely idle and will not be of any benefit for many years, although
every inch of that land could be put into vegetables and be a benefit
to the whole country if there was an outlet for the product. But
under present conditions if they grow vegetables on the land and have
to rely on selling the product fresh or selling it to the canneries,
there is a-slump in the market and the stuff rots and the farmer is dis-
couraged. Under this plan driers can be started by the farmers

20 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

themselves or by associations of farmers in different parts of the
country; all that land can be put into crops to the benefit of the
whole country.

Senator Ranspety. If your theory is correct and those products
could be put in use, there would be a wonderful reduction in the cost
of living?

Mr. Horst. Not only a reduction in the cost of living, but an im-
provement in the health of the people by eating more vegetables.
As Dr. Wiley told me a few days ago, the people of this country
do not eat enough vegetable food to keep them in best health, and
especially in the wintertime when the vegetables are high or prac-
tically none available.

Senator Ranspety. I took a sample of the dried tomatoes from the
committee room and had my wife make tomato soup from the
powder and it was very good, we thought, but the idea struck me
that while that would work with a vegetable that your were going
to make soup of, for example, take cauliflower or cabbage, where
you do not clesire to use it in soup, but to eat the vegetable itself,
how would you bring the vegetable back so that you will be eating”
cabbage?

Mr. Horsr. * The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” We have
served cabbage to 500—or something like 500—men at the Walter
Reed Hospital, and I do not know whether they serve it full por-
tions, but they serve something like + or 5 pounds of dried cabbage
for the whole 500 men, and the cabbage was pronounced excellent by
all the men.

Senator Norris. When that cauliflower in the glass here [indi-
cating the glass on committee table] has been soaked up, it will
never come back again to as large a head as it was originally?

Mr. Horst. Those are only little parts of the head; that is not the
whole head.

Senator Norris. Take a cabbage head. Would you dry the whole -
head or have to cut it up?

Mr. Horst. You could not dry the whole head.

Senator Norris. You would cut it up?

Mr. Horst. We would cut it up.

Senator Norris. And make it into a kind of cabbage slaw?

Mr. Horst. You can slice or split up the cabbage head. You have
got to make the bulk small enough so that, you can dry the inside
part. Wherever you reach the point where the drying stops so that
you can not dry the inside, you must stop. You must make your
product small enough so.that the inside can be dried. But that gives
you plenty of latitude to take care of everything. :

The Cuarrman. Will you put in your statement along with the let-
ters from the Ritz Carlton and Willard Hotel the letter from the
Walter Reed Hospital, when you get that later?

Mr. Horsr. It is not available at the Walter Reed, but the oral re-
port from the Walter Reed Hospital and the Washington Barracks
was that the products are excellent.

The Cuamman. We are very much obliged to you, Mr. Horst.

Senator Ranspewy. This is the most profoundly interesting thing
we have had before this committee for our consideration since I have
been a member of it. If the results are as Mr. Horst says, it is per-
fectly remarkable.

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 21

The Cuairman. If this process is equal to its promise, perishable
products will be made nonperishable, and the summer will be
made perpetual and we will eliminate an enormous amount of waste.

The Curran. We will now hear Mr. Sweet.

STATEMENT OF MR. LOU D. SWEET, UNITED STATES FOOD ADMIN-
ISTRATION, WASHINGTON, D. C.

The CuarrMan. Please state your name, Mr. Sweet?

Mr. Sweet. Lou D. Sweet.

The Cuarrman. And your present address.

Mr. Sweer. Food Administration Building, Washington, D. C.

The Cuarman. We will be glad to hear any statement on your
part concerning this process of dehydration of fruits and vegetables,
in your own way. You are at liberty to speak as appeals to you.

Mr. Sweet. I was asked by Mr. Hoover in July to take up the sub-
ject of dehydrated vegetables and fruits. I began to collate the in-
formation I could get a hold of, first, from the United States Agri-
cultural Department, through the kindness of Dr. Alsberg, Dr. Gore,
and Prof. Corbett, and others, from whom I learned much, as Mr.
Horst has told.you, about the English Government, particularly,
ordering the soup product for the Army in South Africa during the
Boer war. That was made of about 40 per cent. potatoes, 20 per
cent carrots, 20 per cent turnips, 10 per cent cabbage, and 10 per
cent onions, drying 100 pounds of the raw to about 15 pounds of
the dried. That was shipped to them in large quantities. Their
statement was that 100 pounds of the dried would make a soup
ration for about 6,000 soldiers, and five or six rations a weel would
keep them in health. The Boer war closed suddenly and left him
with about 30,000 pounds of the products on hand. There was no
demand for it in Canada or the United States. He put it into bar-
rels sealed it up with paraffin and fifteen years, three months, and
some days after that, or after this present war had started, England
sent him another order. He opened those barrels and it looked all
right, and he shipped it and it proved all right.

Since that time the Graham Products Co. (Ltd.), at Belleville,
Ontario; the Chilliwack Operating Co., at Chilliwack, British
Columbia, and the Dominion Products Co., of Vancouver, British
Columbia, have shipped up until about the 1st of December between
40,000,000 and 50,000,000 pounds of dried products, about 60 per
cent of it in the form of this soup product they call “ Julienne” and
about 40 per cent of the dried sliced potatoes. They require that this
product be put up in 15-pound tins, two tins to a case, and a good
strong case made for it, as they use it in all parts of the world where
they have their armies. _ ; a

They placed an order in: November with the Dominion Products
Co. (Ltd.) for 4,000 tons, about 60 per cent of the soup product and
about 40 per cent of the dried sliced potatoes. In the United States
we found that the American Dehydrating Co., at Waukesha, Wis.,
was one of the earlier companies making a product for the Hudson
Bay people, away up north, where their men needed vegetables to
keep them healthy ; next came the Wittenberg-King Co., of Portland,
Oreg. The Alaska boom started them making it up there. They

22 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

make a very good product, shipping their products mostly to Alaska.
During the last six months there has been a wonderful awakening in
this country on dehydration. The Bureau of Chemistry, under
Dr. Alsberg and Dr. Gore, has made exhaustive study and tests of it.
There have been a number of patents granted to various people.
Some have been promoted, selling people their patent processes.
Little plants have started here and there, some of them making a
fairly good product and some not so very good. But during the past
five or six months there have been a number—some two or three—
that have made a product comparable to the fresh product. I mean
by that that as we take the fresh vegetables from the garden and
prepare them for our meal we have a delicious product, while if it
is shipped from the place where raised into the city, an average of
two or three days transpires probably before people use it, and those
vegetables are not what we would consider fresh and delicious vege-
tables. The dehydrated products, or the good products to-day, after
they have been dried and all the water taken out of them, can be
placed back in cold water and take on the moisture that they origi-
nally contained, or nearly that, and then be cooked, and we are unable
to tell the difference between those and the fresh vegetables.

The Cuarrman. Would it not be possible, Mr. Sweet, in those
markets of the city where there is a great deal of waste in perishable
products to install these plants and save all of that?

Mr. Sweer. Would it not be better for the plants to be erected
where the products were grown and sent :c the cities in the manu-
tactured form?

The Cuatrman. Oh, undoubtedly; that is the idea I have, and that
is what I contemplated in the bill I have introduced but there is a
great deal of waste in the big city markets in all our vegetables, and
it occurred to me that you might install those plants at the markets
and work up what could not be sold.

Mr. Sweer. The main point in fresh vegetables, as I see it, is thas
during the nonproductive season or winter season, with a dehydrated
vegetable, the people of the United States could get a product equal
to fresh vegetables, and they would he healthier, and I firmly believe
that the dehydration of fruits and vegetables is one of the grandest
developments that has come to the United States.

Senator RanspeLy. Have you made estimates as to the compara-
tive cost of these dehydrated vegetables, with the ordinary canned
vegetables, or vonetablea in the form we usually get?

Mr. Sweet. Oh, yes.

Senator Ranspett. How would they compare?

Mr. Sweer. Just a moment——

Senator Ranspreti (interposing). I am speaking now of the ulti-
mate consumer.

Mr. Sweer. Potatoes will dry down to about one-fifth to one-sixth,
petite to the quality of potato. The food in the potato is, of
course, the starch, the protein, and the mineral salts. In the very
high-class potato you will have a very high percentage of those in-
gredients, and the poorer quality, of course, correspondingly less,
and in the United States we have planted the cull potatoes, the little
ones so long, have overcropped our lands so long, that our pro-
duction per capita is the lowest of any country in the world raising

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 23

potatoes, and the consumption per capita the lowest, because of the
poor quality of our potatoes.

Of our 442,500,000 bushels of potatoes, that the Government
states we raised last year, they also figure that only about 32 per
cent of that ever moves out of the country in which raised. They
also figure in Bulletin 47 that the consumption per capita of pota-
toes in the United States is about 2.6 bushels per capita. Potato
flour was made in Germany and shipped to this country prior to
the war. We are now beginning to make some potato flour in the
United States. Potato starch has been made in the United States
more or less from the cull potatoes, that being used by the manu-
facturers for sizing of textiles, not an edible starch. The reduc-
tion of dehydration of the weight of the various vegetables varies
with their water content, potatoes probably being from 100 pounds
down to 20 or as low as 16 or 17 pounds, while some of the other
vegetables will dry down to 8 pounds per hundred. according to
their water content. You would lose the peeling in the dehydra-
tion, but far less peeling by machinery than you would by hand.
The food of the potato, a large percentage of it, lies in that portion
next to the skin, and the potato that is smoothe, with the eyes flush,
by careful paring, would lose 5 to 15 per cent of the food; if it is a
deep-eyed, rough, irregular shaped potato, would lose 30 to 60
per cent of the food, in the ordinary kitchen. paring, while in the
paring by machinery it is done with a centrifugal parer, lined with
carborundum, which just wears the skin off. Dr. Gore, from the
Government, can tell you more about the mechanical end of it.

The product sold in Canada to the English Government, the potato
price, put up in these packages at the seaboard, has run from 20 cents
to 324 cents during the last three years; that is, in a large manufac-
turing way. In the United States, from the estimates we have of the
engineers who worked with us, we believe we are safe in making the
statement of 15 cents a pound, may be less than that, as compared to
their 20 to 324 cents. ;

With the other vegetables, the cost of preparing them for ‘the de
hydration is about the same as in canning; the labor expense neces-
sary to wash them, and peel them, and prepare them, and slice them
ready for the drier. The drying is a simple process of temperature
and humidity to gradually get the water content out, and, of course,
the packing is mechanical, in the lumber, the tin, or the carton, as it
would prove better to do. - :

Senator RAnspELL. Summarizing all you have said, what would you
make the average cost of the potatoes dried, as compared with the

tato ?
ee If you took 100 pounds of potatoes at $1.50 a hundred
and got 20 pounds dehydrated, the original cost would be $1.50 plus
the labor of preparing it and drying it and boxing it, the details of
which I do not know definitely. We have had it estimated by a num-
rs.
Pee Hai But that does not answer the question at all.
These potatoes would not be worth anything. like $1.50 out on the
farm where dried in the wholesale way. I was speaking about the
fellow in the city who used those potatoes and paid $1.50, whereas
by this dehydrating process those potatoes are put up on the farm
where they are worth practically nothing, wasted by rot, fed to hogs,

24 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

or something of that sort, and I take it, if I understood Mr. Horst
right, there would be an enormous saving to the ultimate consumer.

Mr. Sweer. There is no question about it at all.

The Crairman. There is an even greater saving in tomatoes and
things of that sort, than potatoes?

Mr. Swerr. There will be a great saving in potatoes, because of the
reduced waste from the tremendous loss we are having to-day in
handling potatoes by deterioration.

Senator Suirrn of Georgia. I understood you to say it cost 15 cents
a pound average.

Mr. Sweer. That is the figure, about, for the dried product; that is
what the dried product would cost.

Senator Surri of Georgia. To change it from the green to the
dried state?

Mr. Sweer. Yes.

Senator Sarrn of Georgia. And then the additional cost would
depend upon what was paid for the raw material?

Mr. Sweet. Yes, sir.

Senator Smirn of Georgia. What is the relative food value of the
dried pound of the material before it was dried?

Mr. Sweer. I think Dr. Alsburg, Chief of our Bureau of Chem-
istry, can better answer that than I can. From all I am able to find
out about it. by eating them, as I have for some time, I can tell no
difference between the good dehydrated products and the fresh prod-
ucts. Dr. MceCullen, of Johns Hopkins University, says that he finds
them comparable to fresh vegetables, and he sees no reason why any
of the food values should be lost. His experiments with a number
of the vegetable-—cabbage and others—prove that thev are as good
as the fresh vegetables.

Senator Smira of Georgia. His theory is that the pound? of dried
potatoes has as much food value as the potatoes from which the
pound of dried potatoes were produced?

Mr. Sweet. True: ves, sir.

The Cirarraranx. And that enables vou to distribute the whole
perishable crop over the entire United States?

Mr. Sweer, Now, it comes to the point of our Army, they realiz-
ing now that they will need vegetables abroad and can not obtain
fresh vegetables for the summer months.

Senator Surru of Georgia. That is not a matter of expert testi-
mony. We know as much about that as anybody.

Mr. Sweet. You know as much about that as anybody. but the only
point I was making was about the shipping capacity. :

Senator Sarria of Georgia. We understand the shipping matter.
too. What we do not know is. what it cost to produce this result
and what the food value of the result is.

The Ciramuan. I think he told that in vour absence, about the
English Government.

Senator Sarria of Georgia. I heard that. If these potatoes have
half the food value that the green potatoes have and at any reason-
able cost. they can be dried, it is a perfectly clear proposition that
the Government can not afford to wait to start drying.

Senator Norris. T notice in these samples that the potato samples
were cooked before they were dried. Is that the usual way of
doing it? ;

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 25

Mr. Sweer. A good many of the processes we know about blanch
by steam, as they call it, to keep them from oxidizing and turning
dark. After they are pared and sliced, they run them into a steam
jacket, with steam pressure, and blanch them, and then go ahead
with the drying process. You can, and they do turn out a product of
potatoes, where they cook the potatoes, then rice them, and then
dry the riced potatoes.

Senator Norris. There is a sample of that kind right here.

Mr. Sweer. You can put that in hot water and in a very few
minutes have as fine mashed potatoes as you can from fresh potatoes.
With the dehydrated potato, as you would call it, you would have
to put’them back into the water and soak them up to their original
shape and size and then go ahead and cook them.

Senator Norris. What I wanted to get at was, is there any practi-
cal advantage in cooking them before you dry them; is that more
practical than to dry them without cooking them? JI am moved to
ask that question from the fact that I see on the samples of some of
the vegetables that they were cooked before they were dried.

Mr. Sweer. I take it, from a business standpoint, that the English
Government, using them so long and using what we call the dehy-
drated potato, that they have proven to their satisfaction that that
is the best for their needs.

The Cuamman. This experience, then, of using the left-over prod-
ucts from the Boes War would indicate that it was almost indefinite ?

Mr. Sweer. I think so, Senator. I see no reason why it should not
keep rather indefinitely.

The Cuartrman. Thirty-six years as well as 18 years, and so on.
Is there any other question that any Senator desires to ask Mr.
Sweet? If not, we will hear Dr. Fairchild. I want to say, however,
that we are very much obliged to Mr. Sweet for his statement.

STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID FAIRCHILD, DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE.

The Cuarrman. Doctor, kindly state your name.

My. Farcuimp. David Fairchild.

The Cuirrman. What is your present address?

Mr. Farrcutip. Department of Agriculture.

The Cuamman. What is vour official pesition in the department,
Doctor? : ;

Mr. Farrcuiwp. I have charge of the introduction of new food
plants. ; : ;

The Crairman. The committee will be glad to hear you in your
own way discuss the subject of dehydrated fruits and vegetables.

Mr. Farrcutnp. Last April I was requested by Assistant Secretary
Vrooman to study this question from the angle which my own ea-
perience in the introduction of new vegetables would enable me to
give to it, namely, the problem of whether these dried vegetables
would be acceptable to the people. The experience which we have
had in the introduction of such of these southern vegetables ax the
dasheen, has given me a chance, perhaps, to throw a little light. from
a Government standpoint, on this general problem of the human
palate and its effect on our agriculture. I bring that matter up here

26 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

because it is involved in this question of dried vegetables. The diffi-
culty has always been in the introduction of a new food plant, that
the growers of the plant could not advertise it; that is, it did not pay
them to advertise it. The advertising which had been done by farm-
ers, which has paid largely, as I understand it, is after an industry
through various vicissitudes and many years has become established,
and the farmers can form a large organization and control in some
measure the output.

When it comes to a new plant like the dasheen, the Government
has had to do the advertising, and we have now, after these years
of experimenting, a crop of 30,000 bushels, which is nothing, of
course, compared to what it could be, but it has been entirely done
without any advertising on the part of the growers of this vegetable.
That factor, it seems te me, enters into this whole question of what
the Government should do with regard to dried vegetables, for, with
all due respect to the testimony with regard to these things, they
have the character to the popular mind of something that is novel,
something that is new, and they are going to meet with that same
difficulty, perhaps in a minor degree, that every new food has met.
The study which I have made during these months has convinced
me, however, that the reflection which we get from Europe with
regard to the resistance of the people to the changing of their food
habits does not apply wholly to this country. I have traveled in
all of these countries that are now at war. I have considered for
years whether it would be worth while to try to introduce new
vegetables into those countries, and I have long ago made up my
mind that no money inducement would persuade me to try the
experiment in those countries, because of the conservatism of taste.
So when the matter first came up and I discussed it very extensively
with men who had been on the Belgian Commission, particularly
with relation to the difficulties in introducing Indian corn and rice,
I realized that we were in a different position from that which they
were in on the other side. We have introduced new foods. We have
introduced more new foods into our menu in the last 25 years, I be-
lieve, than they have in Europe in the last two centuries, and I think
that these foods have been introduced largely without much adver-
tising—under the normal conditions of the public mind. skeptical.
as it always is, toward the introduction of a new food. When
you think of the successful introduction of such a fruit as the grape-
fruit, so sour that it made the lemon look like 30 cents—as the old
grapefruit certainly did—when vou realize that. that fruit has not
yet found its way into the European markets, you get some idea of
what we Americans can do in this changing of our food habits.

The introduction of these dehydrated vegetables, as I said before,
appears to offer less difficulty because of their cheapness.

The Crairmain. Another thing, Doctor, it is a different form to
ee they have been used to. It is not like a new and untried vege-
table.

Mr. Faircuinp. Exactly; it does not even have to have a new
name, which apparently makes a great difference.

The work which I have done, consequently, has been largely along
the line of testing these on the public taste. :

Senator Smiru of Georgia. Doctor, before you go to that will vou
tell us what you consider the relative food value?

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 27

Mr. Farrcuirp. I talked with Dr. McCollum, of the institute of
hygiene of the Rockefeller Institute, yesterday afternoon over the
telephone. He is now carrying on extensive experiments with 1,500
rats, testing all of these different vegetables. I said, “ Doctor, what
do you think with regard to this whole matter?” He said, “ Mr.
Fairchild, there has been altogether too much said with regard to the
change in food values as the result of dehydration. In my opinion,
gathered from my own experiments and the evidence gathered in
Germany, the food values remain the same.”

The Cuarrman. That is the testimony of the rat,isit? [Laughter.]

Mr. Famcuuip. It is the testimony of the rat, and rats are ex-
tremely sensitive, and live on the very kinds of food that human
beings do, and they are, as I understand, recognized as standard test
animals in these matters of food digestability and nutrition value.

Another point which I wish to put into the record relates to these
substances which Dr. Alsberg knows a great deal more about than
I do, of course. Dr. McCollum’s attitude, as I understand it, to-
ward these so-called vitamines is that the leaf vegetables, such as
cabbage, spinach, and cauliflower, contains more of the substance
which he calls, for lack of a better name, his “ water soluble B” than
do the fruits and the root vegetables. Now, he feels that, owing to
the high price of certain vegetables in the wintertime—for example,
cabbage is selling now for $4 a hundred pounds in our local market
here—the consumer, with a limited pocketbook, is going to buy his
grain products and his essentials as he considers them and cut out
these green-leaf vegetables. According to Dr. McCollum’s investi-
gations, that is a great mistake; that the children particularly, and
even the grown-ups, need this particular substance which occurs in
largest amount in these green vegetables, and which will not be
bought by the consumers during the high-priced vegetable season.
Consequently he is much interested in the possibility of converting
these leaf vegetables during the season when they are very cheap
into an imperishable commodity which everybody can buy when
fresh vegetables are too expense in the winter season.

Senator Smiru of Georgia. The simplest thinker must realize the
point of that.

Mr. Farrcnip. It seems so.

Senator Norris. Right on that point—I do not know whether you
intend to bring it up later—but if you have not, it seems to me ap-
propriate, that it is very desirable, but the practicability of it depends
upon its cost. Now, sometime during your talk to us, I would like
to have you go into that, if you have made a study of the cost of the
machinery, and whether it is practicable for an individual to con-
struct the proper outfit to dry his own product, or whether it ought
to be done by having one located in the community to dry for all
the people, what it would cost to build, to operate it, etc. ;

Mr. Farrcuitp. I can probably answer your question, sir, by giv-
ing you a little historical summary of the development of our own
investigations, which started with the outbreak of the war. Dr.
Alonzo Taylor, now of the Food Administration, who had been
through Germany and who had seen the building of these German
factories, of which they have now in the neighborhood of 1,000,
for the drying of vegetables, pointed out that there were three kinds

28 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

of drying machines used by the Germans. There were the large class,
very expensive affairs running into the hundreds of thousands of
dollars; there were smaller plants, community plants, costing as
low, as say, $5,000 to $10,000; and then there were itinerant dryers.

The Cuarrman. What would the itinerant outfit cost, probably?

Mr. Farrcuiup. When we came to investigate the itinerant, we
found there were many features of it which seemed impracticable.
The space required for the drying and the time required to dry put
it in a very different category from the thrashing machine with
which we are very familiar. In other words, a thrashing machine
would thrash the product from 100 acres in a very short time,
whereas an itinerant dryer would have to spend the whole sum-
mer on that 100-acre field. So we concentrated our attention, in the
first place, on the home dryer, and there were sent out to house-
holders of this country literally millions of descriptions of home
drvers, and a great deal of home drying was done, and I have here
samples of some of the good home drying products. There is no
question but what home drying has its place, but home drying, as
I see it, never will and never can supply the city man at the height
of the season in the hotels, in the restaurants, and eating places with
a standardized product such as he will have to have. Consequently,
the question of supplying the cities has naturally come forward,
brought up by commercial concerns, the names of which Mr. Sweet
has given vou, who have attempted to go into this field that is
opening.

In order to make the cost low enough, the plant has to be large
enough to utilize fully the overhead expenses. The costs of drying
I can not give you as accurately as I wish I could. nor have I been
able to get at the cost of drying as accurately as it should be deter-
mined. There are many complicated factors in the situation.

Senator Suiru of Georgia. It necessarily varies according to the
size of the plant?

Mr. Farmcuitp. And the cost of the labor.

Senator Switu of Georgia. The cost of the labor and the cost of
the fuel?

Mr. Faircuiyp. Certainly.

Senator Smirn of Georgia. And filling your plant. and filling it
and filling it—continuous work.

Mr. Farrcuiip. Continuous work.

Senator Surru of Georgia. You could put a plant down in the
southern part of my State, could you not, where sweet potatoes are
very cheap, and you could get in that section such vast quantities
of sweet potatoes always accessible that you could run a dryer very
much more economically than where you could not just take one
product and put it through as fast as you could move it. There you
could reduce the cost to the minimum.

Mr. Faircutp. Senator, I have been particularly attracted by the
sweet potato possibilities. They are indeed perfectly tremendous.
When you consider that the sweet potato requires 15 per cent less
potash to grow than the Irish potato, that it requires much less nitro-
gen than the Irish potato; that it grows on sandy lands, where you
can not successfully grow corn—it grows in the region of the cheapest
labor that we have in the United States; it is a crop wholly under-
stood by the colored man of the South. It is not limited by the

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 29

factor of the cost of seed, for, as you know, in the second-crop plant-
ing cuttings or fragments of the vines are used, and it is only the
cost of labor, whereas with the Irish potato you have the cost of the
seed. The fact is that you have two crops, not two crops on the same
land, but two planting seasons, and the fact that the sweet potato
contains less moisture than the Irish potato, making it easier to dry,
the further fact is that it contains when dried as high as 21 per cent
of cane sugar, making it a sweet product, and, added to that the
fact, to which I can testify—I have here the recipes from about 40
people—that it makes a very valuable food, and one equivalent in
its calories, or almost equivalent, to that of corn meal, and is suitable
for the making of pastries, of cookies, cakes, and all sorts of prod-
ucts of that kind which are easily introduced because they are sweet.
If you will look through that list of recipes and comments, Sena-
tor, you will find, I think scarcely a criticism or objection to the im-
mediate use of sweet potatoes.

The Cuarrman. Have they not developed a breakfast food out of
sweet potatoes?

Mr. Farrcuitp. They have developed breakfast foods and they
are very good breakfast foods, indeed. I have not the actual food
‘value of them, but I can readily realize that if they are made en-
tirely of sweet potato they should have approximately the food
value of corn-meal mush.

Senator Smrru of Georgia. Let me add one thing to your sug-
gestion, that they have raised as high as 700 bushels of sweet pota-
toes on 1 acre.

Mr. Farrcurip. Yes; immense exceptional yields. It would open
the door to the building of a great swect-potato industry in the
South. ,

Coming down to the estimate of cost, the closest estimate I have
been able to get from others, because, gentlemen, I have not run a
factory myself, naturally, was approximately a half cent a pound;
that is to say, a bushel of potatoes weighing 60 pounds could
be reduced to a meal for approximately 30 cents. _

The CHairMAN. You would have about 10 pounds, approximately ?

Mr. Farrcump. And also have 10 pounds of meal.

The Cuarrman. Doctor, in connection with the first proposition
you advanced, if the Government should establish plants in con-
nection with the land-grant colleges, or demonstration plants in
some of these States, where vegetables are largely grown, would
not that assist your propaganda in the introduction of these
products? er .

Mr. Farrcump. I think it would, but the bill would have to be
materially altered and so plain that the funds would not be used
up almost immediately in the Phe ger of the machinery and
especially in the buying of the fresh vegetables for the purpose of
drying, with no opportunity to sell those products.

Senator Surru of Georgia. Doctor, the drying would have to be

vi nd? F
a Oe It might have to be a revolving fund.

Senator Smiru of Georgia. They unre to have to dry, buy, sell.

Mr. Farrcuitp. As in the present bill, which authorizes the pur-
chase of $6,000,000 worth of seeds, along those lines.

30 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

The Cuarrman. That is a very good suggestion. I did not pro-
vide that it ought to be a revolving fund, but I see it ought to be so.

Mr. Farrcuitp. Otherwise the money would soon give out.

Senator Norris. They might take toll as they did in the olden
times when they took their wheat to the gristmill—bring in the
product and take toll of it.

Mr. Farrcuirp. I think the difficulty would be that the man on the
farm who brought his product to market would have his own fresh
vegetables.

enator Norris. Some things, like potatoes, that he could keep he
would.

Mr. Faircutwy. That would not make it commercially feasible.
We can return to the question of how well these dried vegetables
would be liked. JI carried on a campaign which I would like to men-
tion in this connection. Assuming that we follow those who are our
superiors socially in these matters of food-—and I am convinced that
the foods we are now growing, many of them at least, became estab-
lished fashions through such agencies as the patronage of royalty
and the patronage of the Pope in the old days, and similarly to-day
I have found by practical experience that with these new vegetables
the higher I go up on the social scale the more likely I am to get

eople to interest themselves in them. The others follow their lead
just as they do in other fashions.

I got last summer a number of ladies in the Cabinet to taste a
number of these dried vegetables to find out whether they would like
them, and I have here the testimony from them. There have been
given a number of luncheons, or dinners, in which these vegetables
have been served just as you would serve fresh vegetables, and the
testimony indicates that they are very palatable indeed.

Senator Smiru of Georgia. Can these vegetables be had anywhere
in Washington? Is there any place where they can be bought on the
market?

Mr. Fatrcump. That is one of the difficulties; they can not be;
and that is where the most serious check in the expansion of the
business has taken place.

Senator Smiru of Georgia. Can these vegetables be bought any-
where in Washington in the market?

Mr. Faircump. That is one of the difficulties. They can not be,
and that is where the most serious check and the expansion of the
business has taken place. The distributing agencies of any dried-
vegetable firm must be very large.in order to cover the cities of the
country, and unless something unusual is done to attract the public
attention to these vegetables they will drag along and be a very
long time before they are where people can get to them.

enator Smitu of Georgia. How many plants would you say you
could build with $250,000—good, big plants?

Mr. Farrcuizp. It would be very difficult to say. The smallest
sweet-potato plant which we have even considered—-—

Senator Smiru of Georgia (interposing). That is what I am most
interested in.

Mr. Farrcuip (continuing). Would cost about $5,000. The dry-
ing of the sweet potatoes we figured was a simpler process than any
of the other processes.

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 31

: pial Smiru of Georgia. How many bushels would it turn out

Mr. Farrcump. It would turn out, according to the estimate, 500
bushels a day.

Senator Ranspexw. It seems to me, if we are going to make a suc-
cess of this thing and go into it in a big way, we have got to persuade
ourselves, first, there will be a material saving to the person who con-
sumes these vegetables. I want to know what studies you have made
to show how the grocery bill of a man who eats corn, sweet potatoes,
or tomatoes will compare in the future with the present, when you get
this thing well worked up. I do not mean in an undeveloped form
and as compared not with the present prices but with normal prices
before the war. That is an important thing. If we can persuade the
people they are going to get these things cheaper when dried by this
process they will certainly take to it, if we go at it right.

Stee Farrcuixp. Senator, there is no question about their being
cheaper.

Senator Ransprecu. Materially cheaper—how much? That is what
I want to get at.

Mr. Farmcuup. I can give you a concrete example. The Walter
Reed Hospital wished to test dried cabbages and turnips on 428 men.
We furnished them with 4 pounds of cabbage and 5 pounds of tur-
nips, dried. The price of the cabbage fixed by one of the reliable
firms was 35 cents a pound, which would make the cost of that cab-
bage to the hospital $1.40, approximately. The cost of the turnips
was 30 cents a pound, which would make it $1.50. If you look at the
prices prevailing to-day, which are those which the hospital has to
consider, the cost of 100 pounds of cabbage now is $3.50 to $4.

Senator Ranspe.y. It would be the equivalent of these dried cab-
bage?

Mr. Farrcuttp. No. The sergeant in charge told me that he nor-
mally used about 200 pounds of cabbage. I do not think the por-
tions of cabbage served were as large, but they were certainly half
as large, so that at the rate of 100 pounds of cabbage which he would
have to buy to take the place of the 4 pounds which was furnished, the
difference would still be there between $1.40 and $3.50.

Senator Ransprtu. That is very material saving.

Mr. Farrcuitp. That is a concrete example; and I went out there
myself. and interviewed the men, and Lieut. Baker, who has been
very much interested in these things, and the men ate these vege-
tables and liked them, and there was no question about the economies.

Senator RANSDELL. What was the saving on the other vegetable?
You named one. ; . :

Mr. Farrcuip. With regard to the turnips and the difference in
price it would be between $1.40 and the price of turnips to-day, which
T did not figure out, but which Ihave here. ion

‘And when you consider, Senator, that this is the beginning of a
great industry that we are pioneering, it is important, indeed.

Senator RANspELL. I assume, Doctor, that these comparisons would
be even unfair toward the dehydrated product, because they would
naturally become very much cheaper in proportion when the people
learned the processes and can make them in a large way, is that not

correct ?

32 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

Mr. Farrcuip. The prices I have quoted—that is, 35 cents for the
cabbage—includes a considerable percentage for distribution and for
advertising. It is estimated at 35 to 50 per cent.

Senator RanspeLi. Those are abnormal conditions which would not
occur in nermal times, whereas the prices for the.other things are
reasonably normal. .

Mr. Faircutp. The savings would be larger unquestionably on the
more succulent vegetables.

Senator Ranspeti. What do you think would be the principal ele-
ments of saving to the producer, because I happen to be interested in
the producer. I ama producer myself. Where will the saving come
in to the producer, first, and then to the consumer in the price that
he has to pay?

Mr. Farrcuitp. We will take a concrete example in the sweet po-
tato, because I have given rather unusual attention to that. The
wastage in the sweet potato business, where the potatoes are kept in
banks and in improvised storehouses, varies from 25 to 50 and some-
times as high as 75 per cent. In unusually cold winters, such as the
present winter, the vegetables are locked up in the ground, and be-
cause of this extremely cold weather these banked potatoes are now
impossible to get out.

Senator Smiru of Georgia. And you can not rely on getting them
as a steady food ?

Mr. Fatrcnivp. You can not de it. Consequently, the installation
of dehydration, as I see it, in these sweet potato areas would lead to
the utilization immediately from September to November of the
sweet potatoes, not only the firsts but the seconds as well, into a non-
perishable product. That would stabilize the market. As it is now,
while the price per bushel would be much higher, apparently, to the
grower, $1.75 a bushel would be what he is looking at. How much
of his crop does he sell at that price, do you say ?

Senator Ranspett. A very small percentage now.

Mr. Farrcutip. A very small percentage. The economic result is
that we are really paying for sweet potatoes, which have the food
value of corn meal, not 44 cents, which is the price of a pound of corn
meal, but 144 cents a dry pound, the price of sweet potatoes at present
market price reduced to the dried state of sweet-potato meal. This
is because we are marketing only a fraction of the crop.

Senator Smiru of Georgia. We are paying for the loss.

Mr. Farrcump. We are paying for all the loss, and that is very
discouraging.

Senator Ranspeti. And is it not true of very nearly every other
vegetable? The farmer way out in the country can save anything
he has got if you have these drying plants in the various communi-
ties, if it is practicable, I mean, to have them. ,

Mr. Farrcum. Yes.

Senator Smrrn of Georgia. If it is true that by this process you
can save the sweet-potato crop, is it not easily possible in the Gulf
section to produce sweet potatoes in numbers of bushels equal to the
entire corn crop of this country?

Mr. Farrcurtp. I believe it is possible.

Senator Smiru of Georgia. You can produce four or five times as
many bushels per acre of sweet potatoes with less work.

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 33

Mr. Farrcuip. I have not gone into those figures, Senator, and
it would be a question of statistics which could be easily determined.
The area is capable of vast extension.

Senator Ranspretn. Sweet potatoes do not require any fertilizer,
either.

Senator Smrrx of Georgia. Seven hundred bushels from 1 acre
can be produced.

Senator Ranspeny. That is hardly an average. You do not be-
lieve Georgia would do that on the average?

Senator Smiru of Georgia. No; I did not believe it until they
brought me a half dozen high-class witnesses who saw it done.

Senator Norrrs. I would believe it, too, if they would bring me
some of the potatoes.

Senator Smiru of Georgia. That section also will produce great
quantities of Irish potatoes, but they have never been able to save
them.

Mr. Farrcuiwp. The waste is gigantic.

I would like to put into the record a letter which I received from
the Royal Horticultural Society of Great Britain, dated January 11.
I have kept in touch with this society for years, and I wrote to the
secretary, Mr. Wilks, some time ago, asking him for any experience
which he had in England which would be of assistance to us here,
and I would like to read this portion of his letter:

Then another policy I would like to commend to you would be the setting up
in your country of public storehouses, properly organized and equipped, with
the conditions which the various vegetables require, and including drying and
canning apparatus. We are now trying to give some attention to this matter in
England, and for two reasons: The first is that the enormous number of small
growers which our food campaign has brought into existence have, most of
them, surplus crops which go to waste for want of proper collection and distri-
bution; and the second is that were it known by these small producers that
there would be an organized receiving and distributing station for their surplus
it would stimulate to an even greater extent their efforts and their cropping.

Senator Ranspety. I am curious to ask some of you gentlemen
whether these same processes can be applied to meats and fish.

Mr. Horst. I can answer that. They can.

Senator Ranspexu. That is very important. The ptomaine poison-
ing we suffer from so frequently comes from canned meats and fish.

Mr. Horst. Yes, sir.

Senator Ranspety. Or does it come from canned vegetables?

Mr. Horst. It comes from the canning process.

Senator Ranspreiu. Of fish and oysters—you can not dry oysters,
can you? .

Mr. Horst. Yes, sir; we do dry oysters. I have samples of dried
oysters here.

Senator Ranspevy. Let me get clear on that matter about the
ptomaine poisoning, because we hear every now and then of persons
suffering terribly and dying. Is that eliminated in the process of
drying ¢

Mr. Horst. Dr. Alsberg could probably better answer that than I

can. ae
Dr. Atsprrc. Ptomaine poisoning is due to the growth on any food-

stuff of certain bacteria, which produce toxic substances. It is
"49991183

34 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLE.

usually found in the nitrogenous foods, like meats, fish, and cheese,
and anything nitrogenous.

Senator Ranspreii. Not so much on vegetables?

Dr. Ausbere. It is rare on vegetables, although it occasionally does
occur, particularly with articles like beans, which, again, are nitro-
genous, and occasionally on corn; but it is very unusual in canned
vegetables, and when it does occur it is usually on meats or similar
products.

Senator Ranspetxu. Doctor, would you practically avoid that dan-
ger of ptomaine poisoning if we adopted generally this process of
drying? Could you answer that question offhand?

Dr. Ausperc. Ptomaine poisoning has not anything to do with the
canning process. It is a question of spoiling. If the material that
is put into the can is sound and the canning is done properly, then
there is no danger. In the same way in drying, if the material is
spoiled, then drying will not necessarily make it harmless. The
question is whether the material is spoiled or allowed to be spoiled
in the process.

Mr. Farrcump. Just one other fact I would like to insert in the
record: The Tuskegee Institute has been using sweet potatoes in
the manufacture of its bread for the institution and for the little
village of Tuskegee, which has 500 inhabitants, not connected with
the institution, making in all perhaps 2,000 people. This sweet
potato is either used in the form of flour or mashed at a rate which
means a saving of 200 pounds of flour a day. Dr. Carver, of that
institution, came up here with a most remarkable line of samples
of sweet-potato flour, which were made with rather primitive tools,
but which showed conclusively the possibilities of these sweet-potato
products. I have brought some of them here, and, as these testi-
monials indicate, there is no question about the quality of food
value and flavor of this sweet-potato product.

Senator Norris. Before you leave the stand I wanted to ask vou a
little more about the practical method by which this drying can
be brought about. As I understand you the practical method that
you advocate is that there should be comparatively large plants
established rather than small individual plants.

Mr. Farmcuiup. As large as the area which they could control
would warrant.

Senator Norris. The idea is that if we could establish that it is the
practical way of drying these vegetables to have large establish-
ments, then we run at once into the danger of combinations, the same
as we have now in meats and in the mills, so that if we could have
a small unit that is practicable, perhaps not an individual producer
have it, but something near that, we would avoid the danger of
control of the output by combinations and monopolies, which we
are liable to run into if we must operate in large plants.

Mr. Farrcuip. There is no question but that the small plant can
turn out a beautiful product. These products you see here are the
product of small plants.

Senator Norris. How much do they cost?

Mr. Farrcutp. I do not know what this particular plant cost, but
I know that plants costing $5,000 turn out beautiful products. In
fact, with some of them it does not require nearly as much of a plant

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 35

as that, and you have all gradations from the home drying, with a
primitive plant, which does turn out some very good material, to
the superb stuff that is turned out by the $5,000 or larger plants.

Senator Norris, How would the small plant be able to compete
de as larger ones? Is the unit of cost a great deal larger in a small
plant $ ,

Mr. Farrcump. I have not gone into that feature of it, but I think
it ought to be gone into. The difference would probably be very much
in the same ratio as in any other similar operation, such as milling,
etc., with the exception that cheap household labor might be employed
on the farm with small plants—cheaper than in factories.

The Cuarrman. Canning plants.

Mr. Farcuizp. Canning plants or anything of that kind. The
larger the unit, up to a certain point, the more economical the process,
depending upon the supply, because, of course, the cost of hauling the
vegetables to the mill is one of your important factors. You have got
that haul always to consider, and you could not haul a load of sweet
potatoes more than, we will say, five or six miles with a team and
make it pay.

Senator Smrru of Georgia. No. In one of these big fields in South
Georgia a man could afford to put up a plant, and with an automobile
truck bring the sweet potatoes for 20 miles around to his plant, and
they could be bought very cheap; and if there was a certainty of a
market they would be raised in enormous quantities.

Mr. Farrcuitp. The market could be had.

Senator Smiru of Georgia: At 50 cents a bushel you can beat 30
cents a pound, I know, with sweet potatoes.

The Cuarrman. I remember Jefferson once said that whoever in-
troduces a new food plant into a country rendered a great public serv-
ice. I suppose that would be equally true of a man who devised a new
food for an old, such as this sweet potato flour.

Mr. Farrcuinp. It appeals to one’s imagination.

The Cuarrman. It would mean a tremendous demand for sweet
potatoes.

Senator Smiru of Georgia. Of course, I mean 50 cents a bushel
right out of the field. © .

The Cuairman. We will now hear you, Dr. Alsberg. Kindly state
your name.

STATEMENT OF DR. CARL L. ALSBERG, CHIEF BUREAU OF CHEM-
ISTRY, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

Dr. Ausperc. Carl L. Alsberg, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry,
Department of Agriculture. ;

The Cuairman. We would like to hear anything you have to say,
Doctor, concerning the process of dehydration and the results of it.

Dr. Ausperc. I have very little to add to the statements which
have been made, which are very full and cover the subject, except
that it may interest you to know that the matter is one in which the
Department of Agriculture has been at work for many years.

When the assignment among the various bureaus of funds under
the appropriation made in that food-production bill was under con-
sideration, the Secretary of Agriculture assigned to the Bureau of

36 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

Chemistry a sum of money to carry on work, experimental and prop-
aganda, for this very purpose. The Bureau of Chemistry has been
at work on that line, in cooperation with the trade, and we have
also purchased two small plants, costing, uninstalled, about $2,500
each, one of which is installed in central New York; the other has
not yet been delivered, owing to the manufacturing difficulties of
getting any kind of machinery delivered at the present time.

Senator Ranspett. Where is that to be?

Dr. Auspere. We have not decided where it is to be installed,
Senator.

The Cuarrman. I should think it would be well to locate it in
the Southwest; Oklahoma should be selected. 5

Dr. Aussere. The matter comes down réally to a matter of sales-
manship. We are up against the same proposition that any merchant
is up against who wishes to put upon the market any new product.

The Cuarrman. I was just going to ask you, Doctor, whether the
scientific work you have spent upon it has not demonstrated to you
the feasibility of this process beyond any question of doubt?

Dr. Ausserc. There is no question about it, sir.

The Cuarrman. And it is now a practical question of getting the
plants installed ?

Dr. Ausperc. Yes, sir.

The Cuarrman. Do you agree about the product being substan-
tially as good as the fresh vegetable?

Dr. Ausperc. That depends upon what you mean by “as good.”
It has the same food value. It has not in all cases exactly the same
flavor. It is not in all cases exactly the same product, any more than
the ordinary dried apple that is on the market is the same product
as the fresh apple; but the dried apple is a very useful and valuable
food, and has the fcod value of the apple from which it is made.

So some of these vegetables will be regarded as just the same
as the fresh product when they are properly prepared; others will
be regarded as bearing the same relation to the fresh product that
the ordinary commercial dried apple bears to the fresh apple. But
that is an aesthetic matter—a matter of taste and not a matter of
value in the diet.

Senator Ranspexu. In substance, they have stated it correctly, as
you understand it?

Dr. Ausserc. Yes, sir.

Senator Norris. I want to ask you about this sample of corn that
was dried on the cob. Is that the practical way to dry it? Can you
take roasting ears and dry them?

Dr Atsperc. I have had no personal experience with that.

Mr. Gore. It is very easy to dry corn, but not on the cob.

Senator Norris. Have you dried corn on the cob? ~

Mr. Horsr. I have done that, too.

The Cuarrman. The gentleman who dried that, we will have him
make a statement.

Senator Norris. Were these samples of corn dried on the cob, as
you see them here?

Mr. Hoste. Yes, sir.

Senator Norris. And it is a practical proposition to dry the corn
on the cob? Does it not take a great deal longer and require more
labor and hot air to do it?

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 37

Mr. Hoere. Not with our process. We do not dry products with
hot air.

Senator Norris. You have a different process from those that have
been described here?

Mr. Hocte. Yes, sir; entirely

Senator Norris. All right. { presume you will be on the stand and
you can tell us about it later.

The Cuarrman. Doctor, you think if the Government was to estab-
lish these drying plants next to the land-grant: colleges and one or
two other demonstration plants in the horticultural and gardening
States, that it would be of great assistance in securing markets
through publicity ? ; :

Dr. Auspere. Yes, sir. The Government can put a thing of this
kind into practice at less expense and in less time and more efficiently
than interested private parties can. Exactly where each plant should
be determined separately in each case.

The Cuarman. Particularly when the Nation is schooled on food
conservation. ; :

Dr. Arssrrc. The department has been trying to get consideration
of these products from the public a great many years, and until this
present emergency came along we were practically unsuccessful.
Now every one is interested, and it may interest this committee to
know that through the county demonstration agents of the land-
grant colleges who, of course, are working in cooperation with the
department, the department has had the drying of vegetables intro-
duced in connection with the canning clubs. Small-scale drying was
conducted through the county agents in a very large way last =
The county agents inform me that it has been highly successful, an
that they anticipate a very much larger volume of drying this year
than last. There were some products we did not understand last
year as we do this year. But, on the whole, the field, so far as drying
in a small way for the use of the home on the farm is concerned, it 8
pretty firmly established and is going to grow. It will be promote
1 coming year.
eo Nous, This gentleman answered about the con There
is some other methcd of drying than the one described?

The Cuatrman. I expect that is an up-to-date method. |

Senator Norris. I wanted to ask the doctor, because he is an on
pert, whether there are net eae ie the one described an

en hearing testimony about. —
as er ee I do sen enor of any practical method eae ele
by which I do not mean to imply that some other method may not 6
feasible, but I have no knowledge of any other method that is base
on any other principle than drying with dry air, either cold dry air
or warm dry air. : : aia Pe
: . Doctor, would it not be entirely practicable

a ae ane Economics in Bie Department of Agriculture to
practically teach people this sag eee :

Dr. Axsperc. You en noe rying ¢

Seen ae You oF ‘ it would, and in connection with the county

are Rawnspetx. And larger plants, if the people wanted to estab-
e

lish them, they could show them?

38 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

Dr. Arsperc. Yes; that could be done very well.

Senator Ranspety. You have those agents practically all over the
United States. I know down my way the-local community contrib-
utes a part of the expense of those agents.

Dr. Axsserc. Undoubtedly, the department would have to work
through these agents. Of course, not all of these agents—perhaps
none of them—are familiar with the operation of the large-sized
plant. Such experts in the department as are familiar with them
would have to work through the county agents.

Senator Ranspers.. They could be taught from the land-grant, col-
leges readily, I should think.

Dr. Ausperc. Yes. There were one or two questions which came
up, such as the question of alcohol.

The Cuarrman. Yes.

Dr. Aussere. Alcohol does not exist as such in appreciable amounts
in any of the materials in their natural state from which it is made
commercially, Senator. Alcohol is always produced either from sugar
or else from starch. Starch is the source of the alcohol, and starch
remains in the potato after drying as it was before, so that it is en-
tirely feasible to produce alcohol from dried potatoes.

Senator Ranspety. They make it now from sawdust, do they not?

Dr. Aussperc. Yes; but apparently not quite as cheaply as from
blackstrap molasses; and, furthermore, the cost from blackstrap
molasses is about 16 or 17 cents a gallon, and from sawdust about 22
or 23 cents. Of course, these costs have been shifted by the rising
price of molasses, which is away up at the present time.

Then, with reference to costs, I think there has been some con-
fusion. We have thoroughly accurate figures in regard to manufac-
turing costs for a plant drying, say, 15 tons of potatoes a day—a fair-
sized commercial plant—which fix the cost of production, including
interest and amortization and all the rest of the overhead charges, at
a cent a pound, based on the dry product. I should say to produce a
pound of dried potatoes would cost a cent a pound plus the cost of
the raw materials, whatever they may be. That is a liberal estimate.
In some localities it might be considerably less, but that is a perfectly
safe estimate for a plant of that capacity. To calculate the cost of
the product you would have to add to the 1 cent whatever cost the raw
materials would be.

Senator Ransperz. A cent a pound on dried products?

_ Dr. Atsprre. Yes; a cent a pound on dried products; that covers
just the process—just the process costs—and that includes every-
thing that a manufacturer keeping books in a modern way would
charge in.

Senator Ranspey. That does not include the cost of the package
in which the article is put up, does it?

Dr. Atszere. No, sir; that covers labor, interest on the investment,
amortization, deterioration, writing off, and all those charges. It
does not include any marketing charge; that would vary, of course,
teusely according to the manner in which you were going to mar-

et it. :

The Cuarrman. Is there anything further?

Dr. Ausperc. Only one thing. In reference to the question the
Senator raised concerning cooking: You can either dry vegetables

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 39

cooked or uncooked—any of these products. They dry quite a little
faster, many of them, if they are in the cooked state, because in the
process of cooking the little cells of which the tissues of vegetables
are composed are burst, and, indeed, that is the object of cooking, that
and making things palatable, because when the cells burst the article
becomes more digestible. When the cell is burst the water which was
in that cell evaporates with greater speed, so that you can dry very
rapidly and more cheaply if the article has been cooked. Some artt-
cles give you a product which is tastier and of better flavor if cooked
first. Sometimes-you do not want to cook, but to blanch; that is, to
treat it with heat for a very short time. “ Blanching” is the techni-
cal term the canner uses for a process which is rather scalding than
real cooking. That is particularly desirable for vegetables like the
potato, the cut surface of which, as everybody knows, will-blacken
on standing. ,

That is also true of apples. And this blanching, brief treatment
with heat, will interfere with the blackening process, so that there
is not any blackening. Of course, the blanching of vegetables and
fruits is universally practiced by the canner. Some articles he
blanches and some things he does not. You can not make any
general rule. It depends upon what particular type of product you
want to obtain.

Also, it will be necessary in this connection to do a lot of educa-
tion on the preparation of these products. One of the reasons why
they have not established themselves as they should is that not all
the women are willing to experiment and find the best means of
cooking. They are dealing with essentially a new material; they
have to learn the best technique of handling that material, and that
must also be taught, and that is again where the Office of Home
Economics will have to be very active.

I think, Senator, that covers the points I wished to make.

The Cuarrman. We are very much obliged to you.

STATEMENT OF MR. H. C. GORE, BUREAU OF CHEMISTRY,
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. :

The Cuarrman. Kindly state your full name, Doctor,

Mr. Gore. H. C. Gore, of the Bureau of Chemistry.

The Cuarrman, Doctor, we will be glad to have any statement
you desire to make on this subject.

Mr. Gorr. So much has been said that I do not know what further
can be said to amplify the subject. We feel it is very necessary
that the Government standardize the industry and save it the long
period of uncertainty that we find has existed in the past with such
industries as canning. Mr. Sweet mentioned the large number of
small drying plants which are now started up, and stated, I be-
lieve, that a number of those plants were not producing a product of
very good quality. If the public gets a hold of any large quantity of
such material, dried products may get a bad reputation, which they
do not merit, and we feel that if the Government can take hold of
the drying right now we can do a great deal of standardizing of
products and make them what they really are, if reasonably treated,
and so save the industry perhaps years of development.

40 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

The Cuairman, Get them started right?

Mr. Gore. Yes, sir.

The Cuarrman. Something like Denmark has done in her gov-
ernment marketing of butter and wheat.

Mr. Gore. The history of the drying industry bears that out. A
good many products have been put on the market which have not
held up well, and they have found slow sale. You can find at the
present time, especially in the sporting goods stores, that they do not
move. Our bureau is investigating the causes of that, and the reme-
dies. :

The Cuarrman. It would be possible to work out a plan from the
plant methods of standardization so as to create that result and
obviate the difficulties that would follow unstandardized stuff being
put on the market.

Mr. Gore. We are in position, at the present time, to give a good
deal of information along that line, and will have more a little later.

The Cuairman. Do you know how many different processes there
are of dehydration?

Mr. Gore. The principal process is simply drying the products in
a current of moving air in condition to absorb moisture. Once you
have said that you covered the vast majority of drying processes.

The Cuairman. Everything else is incidental to that, is it?

Mr. Gors. Yes, sir.

Senator Norris. This gentleman was speaking of some other proc-
ess. I would like to hear from him.

STATEMENT OF MR. CHESTER F. HOGLE, REPRESENTING
POSTUM CEREAL.

The CuarirMan. What is your present business, Mr. Hogle.

Mr. Hoerz. I am in the lumber business, principally, also the sugar
business, and I represent the Postum Cereal, the Purity Oats Co.,
and a number of similar concerns.

The Cuamrman. We would ge glad to hear anything you might
care to say on the subject of dehydration.

Mr. Hocus. I have given a great deal of thought and study to the
matter, on account of the tremendous needs that this country is fac-
ing, not only on behalf of the Army and Navy, but for the populace
as well, from the standpoint of supplying sufficient nutritive foods
promptly and in palatable form. Last July the gentleman who is
present here in the room brought me at my office in Chicago a process
which he claimed at that time, and which I have since satisfied my-
self of, as being the opposite of every other method of dehydration
or drying of fruits, vegetables, meats, and fish, which has been em-
ployed up to this time, and the results of this process as compared
with the goods produced by other methods is manifest in the quality,
in the appearance and color and in the flavor. So far as dehydration
is concerned in this country, we have, comparatively speaking,
practically nothing.

Being largely identified in the beet sugar industry and having
been 20 years engaged in it, we are used to figuring in thousands of
tons. At this time on this present crop of 1917-18, we have raised
and manufactured in this country in from 90 to 120 days approxi-
mately 7,000,000 tons of beets. I have been down here since the 12th

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 4]

of November with these samples. Probably some 200 Government
officials have viewed them at the Lafayette: Hotel, and many of
them have taken them home and tried them, and without exception
ey have stated they could not be distinguished from fresh vege-
ables.

_And now, for our present needs under war conditions, as an indi-
vidual, and my associate, Mr. Hulbert, felt the same way, our first
duty was to the United States Government, and with that in view
we came to Washington with these samples and tendered the free
use of this process to the Government, together with my services,
without remuneration for the term of the war.

The Cuarrman. Is it a patented process, Mr, Hogle?

Mr. Hoctsz. Yes, sir. For the erection of sufficient capacity, first,
to take care of the entire needs of the Army and Navy, after which
plants could be erected as desired throughout the country to take
care of the needs of the civil population. The matter has been care-
fully sens by various departments. The conclusion has not

et been reached.

- Senator Norris. How long have you been at it?

Mr. Hoste. I arrived here the 12th of November. My first propo-
sition was that the Government should build the plants and operate
them themselves to produce these products. I was then requested to
ascertain on what basis I could secure the plants, and what the
capacity necessary would be; what would be the cost of the plants,
and what would be the cost of the products, and in what length of
time those plants could be put into operation. : ‘ :

With this in view I took the matter up with our engineers in Chi-
cago, and they advised that they could supply f. 0. b. cars in Chicago
anlirient capacity to feed 1,000,000 men within 90 days from the day
they received the order, and that those plants could be put into opera-
tion within 60 days from arrival at chosen destinations where suffi-
cient green material was available. On the present basis of 20
ounces per man per day, which is the Government ration, all the Gov-
ernment requires to feed 1,000,000 is a daily capacity of 650 tons,
which is only about equal to the capacity of our smallest beet-sugar
plant, which plants range in capacity from 500 tons to 1,000 tons
green per day. Our greatest need in these products for the civil
population is in the thickly populated districts, where green vege-
tables are available temporarily and usually at prices beyond the
reach of the ordinary consumer. Now, with meat and eggs at present
prices and green vegetables practically unobtainable to the average
man, he is in pretty bad shape, and it is my understanding that the
Government figures to-day that we are now losing approximately
54 per cent of our fruits and vegetables in this country that come to
maturity, and they are never available, for either human or animal
consumption from such causes as rot, poor transportation facilities,

oor marketing facilities, undesirable markets, market conditions,
a In Germany, I am informed, on July 1, 1916, there were 861
dehydrating plants in operation. I quote from the New York Sun

b ding]:
pis eee) Cs SS 480 dehydrating Seated in aang ae steele
annually about a quarter million pounds of potatoes alone. In a food c

; A i the time of Germany’s first declaration of war 246
ae EE aed bee added, 190 of which were aided by Government
new de

funds.

42 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

That, gentlemen, is the secret of Germany’s self-containment in
the matter of foods throughout this war and at the present time, and,
as previously stated, we have practically no capacity in this country
to-day, viewing the situation broadly.

Senator Norris. Is this system of yours a dehydrating process?

Mr. Hoctez. No, sir; a curing process. The term “ dehydrating ”
actually means the removal of water, but our process is not a de-
hydrating process in the generally accepted meaning of that term.

Senator Norris. Is your process used in Germany? -

Mr. Hoery. No, sir.

Senator Norris. It is a new process here?

Mr. Hoes. A new process.

Senator Norris. Of these samples here, which are yours?

Mr. Hocte. All these samples here are ours.

Senator Norris. At this end of the table here [indicating].

Mr. Hoets. Yes, sir.

Senator Norris. Can you tell us something about the cost and

practicability to put up a plant?
’ Mr. Hoetez. Yes, sir. In the matter of costs, the British Govern-
ment recently placed orders for 400,000,000 pounds of fine-cut fried
potatoes, which are cut in small squares, and available only for
soup, at a price, varied through this casa year, if I understand it,
of 25, 274, and 30 cents per dried pound, which, if equally dis-
tributed, would give you an average cost on the 400,000,000 pounds
of 274 cents per pound. In figuring the cost of feeding 1,000,000
men, we would save the Government in actual cash against what the
British Government has already paid—I presume you would like the
exact figures—$10,579,433.33.

The Caarrman. What is that?

Mr. Hocte. That is the saving on six months’ supply for 1,000,000
men at the price the British Government has already paid.

The Cuartrman. That is, you think it could be worked on that
basis so as to make that saving?

Mr. Hoctz. We know it could.

Senator Norris. What products?

Mr. Hocre. Applied only to potatoes.

Senator Norris. Just to potatoes?

Mr. Hocie. We have calculated it, because the Army ration may
be 100 per cent, and, in any event, not less than 70 per cent; so that
is the thing we are particularly interested in.

In addition to that, the Surgeon General’s Office, on inquiry, ad-
vised me that as near as he could estimate it, it took two men all
day to prepare sufficient potatoes and such other vegetables as may
be obtainable to feed 100 men. Therefore, figuring on the basis of
1,000,000 men, the continuous daily labor of 20,000 men, or 2 per
cent, of your Army could be released for other duty by the use of
these products. In addition to that, you would save from 60 to 75
per cent of the freight room and freight charges. On the six
months’ supply that saving in freight room would be 100,000 tons.

Senator Norris. You are comparing the food prepared by the
drying process and by your process.

Mr. Hoerx. No, sir.

Senator Norris. You mean it would not tage as much storage
room ?

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 43

Mr. Hoere. It takes only 25 per cent as much storage room.

Senator Norris. And you would release men who prepare the
food by having it already prepared ?

Mr. Hoetr. Yes, sir; by having it entirely prepared. You can see
they are all ready to cook—peeled and sliced and ready to cook—
and when they are cooked they can not be distinguished from fresh
products by anyone.

Senator Norris. I wish you would tell a little more about the
process. I am curious to know about it. I confess it is new to me.

Mr. Hoexe. It is new, and the difficulties we have met have been
principally on account of its being new. We are facing the same
skepticism that confronts every new idea, which confronted the
telephone and wireless and everything else.

Senator Norris. It is not a drying process?

Mr. Hosts. No, sir; it is a curing process.

Senator Norris. The effect of it is about the same?

Mr. Hoare. No, sir.

Senator Norris. Take this potato. What has happened to that?
You have taken the moisture out of it?

Mr. Hocre. That is very true.

Senator Norris. That is the same as they do when they dry it.

Mr. Hoctz. I know; but the results are entirely different when
the moisture is removed by this process as against any other process
known. In fact, our patent attorneys have advised us, after con-
ferring with the Commissioner of Patents, that this is the reverse of
every other process of drying that has ever been attempted, and
the results speak for thems:lves.

Senator Norris. Take this sample of corn on the cob here.

Mr. Hocte. Yes, sir.

Senator Norris. That is cooked, all ready to eat, is it not?

Mr. Hocie. No, sir; that is raw corn. There is the cob right
alongside of it; that is, the cob for that one in the bottle—the same
kind of corn.

Senator Norris. Yes: that has been in water in this can?

Mr. Hoctre. That is just water, with benzoate of soda to keep it
sweet; that is all.

Senator Norris. And the finished product by your process——

Mr. Hoctix (interposing). Is raw, ready to cook.

Senator Norris. Yes; but it is not this size.

Mr. Hocre. When we get through with it it is like that. When

ou buy it as a consumer, you take it and soak it, and when it soaks”
feelc to actual normal size you take it and boil it.

Senator Norris. This I hold in my hand is the finished product?

Mr. Hocrz. Yes, sir. ;

Senator Norris. And this in the can is the finished product,
soaked ?

Mr. Hocte. Yes, sir.

The Cyuarrwan. And the shrinkage is just about the same as re-
lated here?

Mr. Hoare. The Government figures show, based on some 4,000
tests, that the shrinkage is ene to ve cent; for instance,

uliflower. 94 per cent; potatoes, 62 per cent. :

a es ee The ‘aes occupied by the finished product is the
same space that would be occupied by the product if dried, is it not?

44 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

Mr. Hoetz. Oh, yes; there is no saving in space between our prod-
ucts, so far as space is concerned, and any other dried product.

Senator Norris. But, as I understand it, you claim that the process
does it more economically and cheaper than the drying process ?

Mr. Hocte. Yes, sir. Not only that, but that they can not be dis-
tinguished from the fresh products either as to color, flavor, or food
value.

Senator Norris. Then the process must be less expensive, I take it,
than the other?

Mr. Hoctz. It is.

Senator Norris. Is it a process that would be practicable for an
individual, for instance?

Mr. Hocte. Not for individuals; no, sir; at least we have not tried
to work it out to that extent. Our first thought, as I explained, were
the needs of the Army and Navy; the second is the erection of large
plants at convenient points based on convenient raw material.

The Cusmman. What do you estimate those plants to cost, rang-
ing between what figures?

Mr. Hocte. We have a price which we have submitted on capacity
sufficient to take care of the requirements of the Army and Navy.

The Cuarrman. How many plants does that involve?

Mr. Hoctre. It just depends on whether you want to start in a num-
ber of places or put them all in one place. ~

‘The Cuairman. What I want to get at is what would one of the
units costs, whether all in one place or distributed.

Mr. Hocie. One of our units with 1,000 pounds capacity a day,
f. o. b. Chicago, would cost $750. ;

Senator Norris. Does it require any technical knowledge to op-
erate, or anything of that kind?

Mr. Hocte. No, sir.

Senator Norris. How old is the patent?

Mr. Hocte. Just this vear. It is entirely new, but those men have
had a hard time.

Senator Norris. What I would like to get at is, for instance, if it
were a practical proposition after the war was over. so that plants
that are not expensive could be established in various localities. Of
course, if you have to ship the product before preparing it long dis-
tances then you interfere, of course, with its cost, increase it greatly
and make it less practicable.

Mr. Hocin. Our process is entirely elastic in that respect, because
we ean erect capacity with full efficieney of from 1,000 pounds green
ver day. ;
Senator Norris. When you said a factory would produce 1,000
pounds a day could be erected for $750

Mr. Hocie (interposing). Could not be erected.

Senator Norris. The machinery would cost that?

Mr. Hocre. Yes, sir.

Senator Norris. Does that mean 1,000 pounds dried or green?

Mr. Hocrir. No; that does not mean green. You can place those
plants at any desired locality in units of from 1,000 pounds to 2.000
pounds a day if you care to.

Senator Norris. Your patent is on the machinerv ?

Mr. Hoerx. On the process.

DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 45

Ps ae tp Is it for sale? I mean would you put up a plant
anybody who wanted you to put one up, and allow them to use the,
process if you erect the plant for them ?

r. Hocxe. We came down here to tender the use of this to the
Government first. I have kept the matter entirely in my own hands
until the Government could say whether they cared to avail them-
selves of my offer or not. That was done on the advice of Mr. Harry
A. Wheeler, food administrator of Illinois.

Senator Norris. You have not decided yourselves then what you
are going to do, or how you are going to operate it?

Mr. Hoctz. We have formulated plans to operate it commercially,
and just as soon as the Government says whether they want to do
anything with it. If they say they do, my services are at their com-
mand. If they do not, I have ample means at my command to
proceed commercially.

Senator Norris. And then you will establish plants at various
places ?

Mr. Hocte. Yes, sir.

Senator Norris. Can you describe the process to us?

Mr. Hoes. I would prefer that you get a copy of the patent and
read it, and then you can get it clearly yourself.

Senator Norris. You could tell us in general, ordinary language,
in a few words, so we would understand it better than if we read
the patent.

Mr. Hoetz. There is one objection to that. While it is patented
process and the copy of the patent is available, if the notes of the
stenographer here are for publication or for public circulation, don’t

you think it would be rather unwise to disclose a method of this
kind for general information?

Senator Norris. I am not asking you to disclose any information
that is secret, or anything of that kind.

Mr. Hoectre. There is nothing secret about it.

Senator Norris. If it is patented you would not run any risk in
telling all about it.

Mr. Hoctz. There is no risk in telling about it, and it is all in the
patent, I mean to say, not if these remarks can be circulated.

Senator Norris. They can be, of course; they will be published.

Mr. Hocte. I refer to the unwisdom of circulating particular in-
formation about something that is for our benefit.

Senator Norris. I should think you would be glad to have it cir-
culated and advertised. :

Mr. Hoctrz. I know, but should we make this process available to
our enemies as freely as to ourselves?

Senator Norris. Not if it is patented.

Mr. Hocrz. What is to prevent the process, for instance, from get-
ting to Germany? This is far in advance of anything that they are
doing. If you wish me to tell what it is, I am perfectly willing to
do so.

Senator Norris. No; I would not want it to get to Germany.

Mr. Hocte. That is the risk; that is the only reason I hesitate;
and if you would care to call at the Lafayette Hotel you can see the
full display of these products. Now, these restored samples here
scarcely represent the products when freshly restored, because they

46 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.

have been soaking and subjected to the sunlight. But we have freshly
restored ones at the Lafayette Hotel, and if you have cooking facili-
ties, we would be delighted to furnish you with such products, and,
then, you can satisfy yourself.

Senator Norris. I have; and my wife does the cooking.

Mr. Hocte. That is fine.

Senator Norris. And I would be glad to, as I took some of these
other samples, I would be glad to take home some of yours and have
my wife try them. .

Mr. Hoete. I will either send them to you, or, if you will call at
the hotel, I will be pleased to explain this process and give you such
products as you care to select, because we have a large line there.

The Cuarrman. Unless there are further questions the committee
desires to ask any of these gentlemen, we will close the hearing.

(Thereupon, at 5.25 o’clock p. m., the committee adjourned to meet
at the call of the chairman.)