It has been observed that the amount of Peaches consumed in a single week in the city of New York, exceeds the total consumption of fruit in Great Britain throughout the entire year. The sales of perishable fruits are rapidly increasing throughout the country; but there is one serious drawback to their extensive cultivation - that is the necessity of crowding them into market at the critical period of 'their maturity, bo that twenty-four hour's delay shall not witness their destruction by decay and fermentation, and result in their total loss. Hence the immense superiority in this particular, of long-keeping sorts - which may be deliberately secured and held in market for many months, till the best time shall be selected for their disposal.

But there is another important avenue to market for the perishable fruits that is at present almost unknown in its perfected form. We allude to preservation by drying. Every farmer thinks he has seen dried Apples and Peaches, but not one in a thousand has seen them - properly so called. That which usually appears under this name, consists in the first place, of a selection of such inferior, poor-flavored fruit, as can be used for nothing else; this is imperfectly pared, leaving a due proportion of skin and core remaining, and is then variously subjected to partial decay, smoking, drying, &C, forming when completed, a singular medley of all colors, from brown to nearly black, and with nearly as various an intermixture of flavors. Those who wish to see dried fruit in perfection, must remember that a poor-flavored sort before drying, can never by any ingenious process become finely-flavored afterwards. The very finest vareities must therefore be first chosen. The process of drying must then be so rapid that no decay nor even discoloration shall take place until the operation is completed. Our climate is too precarious to think of drying fruit properly in the open air, even for the earliest varieties.

Some artificial arrangement for the purpose must therefore be devised.

The great leading defect of all the plans we have seen for drying by fire-heat, is a want of circulation in the heated air - a deficiency in rapid ventilation. A high temperature is given by means of stoves to a close apartment, the air of which in a few minutes is heavily charged with moisture from the fresh fruit, and a sort of steaming, stewing, half-baking process then commences, producing after a long delay, an article far different from that of a perfectly dried, finely-flavored fruit A free circulation of air, kept dry by a continued fresh supply, would accomplish the work in far less time, and at a much lower temperature; and consequently retain in an incomparably more perfect manner the original characteristics and color of the fruit.

In order to make a beginning in this matter, and to assist in the erection of good, cheap, rapidly-operating, and perfect fruit drying establishments, we present to our readers a figure and description of an apparatus for this purpose, which, although never patented, we believe to be far more valuable than many machines not thus thrown open to the public Its peculiar advantages will be obvious as soon as the description is examined.

It consists of a tall upright shaft, a b, represented in the annexed section of the apparatus, through which passes an endless chain, made of a number of strong frames, securely hinged together at their corners. This chain should be strong enough to bear several hundred pounds without breaking. At every joint it is furnished with a braced shelf, each consisting simply of a square frame furnished with coarse twine-netting, like a sieve. This endless chain with its series of sieves runs over an angular wheel above and another below, precisely like those of a common chain pump, but wide enough to receive the full breadth of the chain. Its motion is quite slow, descending from a to b on one side, and rising on the other, and is accurately regulated by means of the pendulum d connected to the notched wheel c, by means of an escapement like that of a common clock, but made very strong. A strong and broad India-rubber band connects the axle of this wheel to the drum e, on which the chain runs. As the chain is loaded with the drying fruit, and is therefore quite heavy, it must not, and indeed can not, be subjected to the successive vibrations of the clock-work, these vibrations being broken and destroyed by the India-rubber band.

The whole apparatus being ready for operation, heated air from a stove and drums is made to pass up through the shaft a b, being let in at the sides at b, and confined to this shaft by the drum e being made tight, and fitting closely without touching in its revolutions. A person with freshly cut and pared fruit stations himself at o, and as each successive shelf or sieve slowly descends, spreads a single layer over them. They operate like the weight of a clock in keeping up the motion of the pendulum; and the velocity of their descent is accurately regulated by means of the relative sizes of the wheels placed on the axles of c and e, and also, if necessary, bv using different lengths for the pendulum rod.

The great advantage of this contrivance is the following: The dry and freshly heated air first enters the bottom of the shaft at b and strikes the fruit when the drying process is nearly finished, and completes it; as this air rises, it receives additional portions of moisture from each successive shelf, until finally it passes off at the top, - the driest portion being needed at the bottom, to complete the process, and those most charged with vapor only coming in contact with the freshest fruit at the top, where only it could be useful.

The velocity must be so regulated, by experiment, (according to the height of the shaft, heat of the air, and time required for drying,) that the drying process shall be just completed by the time the fruit reaches the bottom, where it drops off Atom the revolving shelves into baskets or boxes placed there for this purpose.

This apparatus may be placed in a tall narrow building erected for the purpose, and built cheaply by vertical boarding on a wooden frame, to the whole of which a handsome architectural exterior may be imparted by giving it the aspect of a square Italian tower or campanile.

An apparatus of this sort will dry fruit with great rapidity, certainly, and independently of the most unfavorable changes in the weather; and it will come out white, clean, and perfectly dried, retaining all the peculiar flavor of the fresh fruit, and prove incomparably superior to the common half-decayed, smoked, imperfect article. When known, such dried fruit must command almost any price in market Drying establishments, well managed, would give a great impetus to Peach planting in this country; and we unhesitatingly predict a large trade in the finest dried Peaches in European markets, to which they can be so cheaply and safely conveyed, and where, as fresh Peaches cannot be easily obtained, they cannot fail to be very highly appreciated.