Pickles, Preserves, Jellies and This important branch of the industry is of more recent development. It can hardly be called canning because most of it is put up in glass. The methods of cooking and pre serving are very similar. The trade consists mainly of branded goods whose sale is created and maintained largely by advertising. The brands are put up attractively, trade marks are used to protect them, and notwithstanding criticisms of pure food agitators, they have moved steadily forward in popular favor. The i goods packed in glass are more liable to con tact with the air, and therefore the manufac turers have depended more on artificial pre servatives, of which benzoate of soda is the most common. The difficulties of making the goods keep and of avoiding harmful preserva tives seems to have been met successfully, as shown by the vast sale. In 1909 the total for pickles, preserves, jellies and sauces was $48,500,000, and in 1914 the estimated figure was $66,000,000 worth.
Canning Tools and Processes.— In 1876, at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the Ferracute Machine Company, of Bridge ton N. J., displayed a collection of tools for malting cans and canners' goods, and imme diately thereafter secured large sales. To Oberlin Smith, president of the concern, and also for a time president of the American Society of . Mechanical Engineers, must be given a great deal of the credit for supplying canneries with simple and inexpensive machin ery. A line of presses was marketed for stamping out the tops and parts of cans of all sizes; gasoline firepots were made for heat ing the capping steels and tinning-coppers, or tools for closing the cans. These fire-pots were provided with air-pumps for driving air into the gasoline tanks and thus forcing out the oil, which was vaporized by the heat and burned as a gas under the pot. These pots for heating the soldering tools are designed to stand on the capping-tables where the tops of the cans are soldered. Among special machines made for the canner are hulling machines with a capacity of 1,000 bushels of peas in 10 hours, and rotary seriarators that grade the peas into sizes at about two-thirds this speed. There are also pea-sieves for sort ing peas in small quantities, and pea-blanchers for scalding and blanching peas. There are corn-cutters on the market with a capacity of 4,000 ears an hour, and corn-silking machines for removing the silk and refuse from the corn. Many automatic can-4Illing machines will handle 1,200 cans an hour. There is a great variety of machines for handling the different fruits and vegetables, as well as numerous parers, graters, corers and seeders.
In canning fruit, steam-boilers are necessary to supply the various tanks and kettles, which are used in washing and scalding. Baskets of heavy galvanized wire are used for handling tomatoes and various fruits when dipping into the scalding kettles. For steam-cooking a common method is to fill a large wire tray with filled cans which have been capped but not wholly dosed, a vent being left for the escape of air and steam. Immediately after cooking, while yet hot, this vent is sealed with a drop of solder, so that the destructive germ has no chance to enter. Salmon is cooked and sealed afterward in the same manner.
Statistics,- California is now the leading State in the canning and preserving industry. Her production increased 120 per cent in the decade ending in 1909, in which latter year over $33,000,000 worth of goods, mostly canned fruits, were placed to her credit, this being 20 per cent of the country's total. New York was the second State, with $19,000,000 pro duction, and Maryland has fallen to third place with $14,700,000. Washington advanced from 13th to fourth rank with a production of T9,600,000, a gain of per cent; Pennsyl vania continued the normal output of $9,500, 000; Indiana developed wonderfully, showing $8,758,000, a gain of 158 per cent. The other States of large production are Maine, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey. Of these, Wisconsin is making the most rapid progress, showing an advance of 253 per cent in the census period. There is really only one State that shows a consider able falling off in canning, Mississippi, where the fish and oyster industry has decayed.
The average number of people employed in canning and preserving in the United States is 72,000, but this is a very variable figure, because canning is largely a seasonal business. Only 20,000 people find employment in Janu ary, while the demand fromJuly to October runs from 100,000 to 155,000, September being the busiest month. Nearly one-half of the employees are women and children, but the proportion of men increases, and the disposi tion to employ children diminishes.
A total of $119,000,000 capital is invested in the industry; the earnings are nominally $235, 000,000, but subtracting the cost of the ma terials, the real income being the value added by manufacture, gives about $85,000,000 as the real measure of the industry annually.