The States having the largest number of canning establishments were: New York, 790; Maryland, 468; Virginia, 325; Maine, 245; Cali fornia, 196; Texas, 158; Indiana, 134; Illinois, 118; Ohio, 107; Michigan, 104; New Jersey, 84; Wisconsin, 83, and Delaware, 77.
The value of the products in the 10 leading States were: In California $32,914,829; in New York, $19,039,735; in Maryland, $13,709,449; in Washington, $9,595,387 ; in Pennsylvania, $9,484, 026; in Indiana, $8,758,343; in Maine, $7,688,833; in Illinois, $7,619,586 ; in Massachusetts, $6,840,306; in Michigan, $4,970,911.
Of the whole number of establishments, 2,789 were devoted to fruit and vegetables, with a product valued at $91,439,161; 328 were de voted to fish, with a product valued at $25, 514,436; 70 to oysters, with a product valued at $2,813,857, and 580 to pickles, preserves and sauces, with a product valued at $37,333,747. The total production for the year was 32,752, 469 cases of canned vegetables; 5,501,404 cases of fruit; 400,328,767 pounds of dried fruit; 235,418,713 pounds of oysters and fish; 39, 814,989 pounds of smoked fish, and 128,539,299 pounds of salted fish.
The fruits and vegetablespreserved in lar gest values were: Tomatoes, $18,747,941; peas, $10,247,363; corn, $10,332,106; beans, $6,013,098; peaches, $3,753,698; pears, $1,833,214; apples, $1,898,720; apricots, $1,825,311; prunes, $5,130, 412; raisins, $4,837,933; dried apples, $3,098,095.
The drying of fruit is confined chiefly to California, which has 84 per cent of this in dustry. New York comes second in this re spect, with 8 per cent of the total number of pounds. Louisiana leads in the oyster canning, closely followed by Mississippi and South Caro lina. Maryland leads in the canning of to matoes, with Delaware second and New Jersey third; Illinois leads in the canning of corn, with Iowa second and third; Wisconsin leads in the canning of peas, with New York second; California leads in the canning of peaches and pears and New York in the can ning of apples. Maine is the leading State in sardine canning.
Fish Canning and Preserving.— The num ber of establishments devoted to fish canning and preserving in the United States in 1905 was 373, having increased from 110 in 1890. Of the
total number in 1905, 141 were in Maine, 50 in Massachusetts, 63 in Alaska, 36 in Washington, 25 in Oregon and 13 in California. The value of products in 1905 was $26,377,210, of which Maine produced $5,055,091, Washington $3,187, 149, Alaska $7,735,782 (or about the same amount paid Russia for this territory), and Oregon $2,577,746.
By far the greatest capital employed in any single city in fish preservation was in Glou cester ($1,479,647), and secondly in Seattle, Wash., $336,620.
The canning of fish was introduced at East port, Me., in 1843, lobsters and mackerel be ing preserved in this manner. Establishments for salmon canning were started on the Co lumbia River in 1866 and at Klawak, Old Sitka and Cook Inlet in Alaska in 1878 and 1882. The labor in these salmon canneries is chiefly per formed by Chinese. The sardine canning of Maine is next in importance to the salmon can ning of the Pacific coast. Sardine is a general term applied to various small fishes, the best known being the young of the pilchard (French) and the young of the sea-herring (coast of Maine). The fish are first fried in oil and then placed in a can with oil. Olive oil or peanut oil are chiefly used in France for this purpose, and cottonseed oil in Maine.
The number of establishments engaged in oyster canning in the United States in 1905 was 69, of which 11 were in Maine, 7 in Florida and 9 in South Carolina; $2,599,563 in capital was devoted to this industry, and the products were valued at $3,986,239, of which two-thirds were produced in Maryland. In canning oysters in large quantities, steam is employed; the oysters, while in the shell, being put into a steam-tight box and submitted to the action of steam for 15 minutes, by which process they are more readily opened and made ready for canning.
The extent and importance of the food can ning industry of the United States may be esti mated by the fact that 400,000 persons are em ployed in the work of canning, manufacture of cans, packing boxes, etc. It would require 60,000 freight cars to transport a year's prod uct; 750,000,000 cans, 2,000,000 boxes of tin plate for the cans and 30,000,000 wooden packing boxes.