Since that day the history of the confec tionery trade has been a constant record of de velopment. Year by year new improvements have been made and new and more perfect ma chinery has been invented, all of which have quiddy.been adapted to the manufacture of the various kinds of goods that the constantly widening demands of the business have re quired. While the actual manufacture of candy has extended until it has become one of the nation's greatest industries, it has created around it a number of dependent industries, each of which now represents a special busi ness of no slight importance. Thus, for ex ample, the maloing of confectioner's machin ery is now a separate industry in which a great amount of capital is invested, and the business of confectioner's supplies represents an annual product that is by no means to be despised.
There are other factors that have played an important part in this extension of the con fectionery industry. The low prices of sugar and the other materials used in the making of confectionery have exerted an influence, the ef fect of which cannot be disregarded, while the introduction of new and improved machinery in all our candy factories has a tendency to reduce the cost of manufacture to such a de gree that the American producers have been able to make the best goods at a cost so low as to bring them within the reach of all.
Much of the credit for this satisfactory con dition of affairs is due to the labors of the mem bers of the National Confectioners' Association of the United States. This organization, founded in 1884, which includes in its membership all the leading candy manufacturers of the country, has for its declared purpose, °to advance the standard of confectionery in all practicable ways, and absolutely to prevent hurtful adul terations; to promote the common business in terests of its members, and to establish and maintain more intimate relations between them; to take united action upon all matters affecting the welfare of the trade at large Since this association has been in existence the results of its work have been mani fested in the securing of necessary legislation in the several States by means of which the manufacture or sale of all candies containing harmful ingredients or poisonous coloring mat ters has now been prohibited by law; by ef fectually stamping out all attempts at adultera tion which were once so common among the makers of the cheaper grades of goods, and by the establishment in the mind of the consumer of a degree of confidence in the purity of the American product that is a strong argument for the purchase of such goods. As the result
of this happy combination of circumstances we have the great American confectionery indus try of to-day.
Candies may be divided roughly into hard and soft grades. The hard candy is made of sugar, glucose, flavoring and coloring, with sometimes additions of nuts, etc. Starch is a leading constituent of soft candies. The hard candies were the first to be made by machine, but gradually mechanism has been developed for making soft and fancy candies largely by machinery, and makers of high-priced, hand made candies are kept busy devising new con coctions to keep ahead of the machine prod uct. Cane-ground sugar is almost wholly em ployed, and for hard candy the proportion is usually 85 per cent sugar to 15 per cent glu cose. Glucose being a pure product of Indian corn adds to the nutritive value of candy. The hard candy ingredients are mixed in. copper kettles and cooked, more heat being required in summer than in winter to ensure a hard candy. When cooked it is poured on a slab and cold water run on. Marble is now seldom used for slabs, steel proving more satisfactory. The product is then kneaded and pulled on a hook until white. It is pulled by hand, the candy-maker wearing buckskin gloves; or it may be pulled by an ingenious machine with continuous cranks that imitate the motions of hand-pulling. When it is pulled white, it is cut into sticks, slabs or rolled into balls or other forms.
In a large candy factory the sugar, glucose, starch and other materials go to the top floor, where all operations are begun. Here are the steam-jacketed cooking kettles. If starch goods are being made, the cooking kettle used is directly over the Cdepositora machine on the floor below, so that the mixture may go down by gravity. If hard candy is being made, the first kettle is right over the continuous cooker. If it is cream candy, the kettle is positioned to discharge to a cooler; when cooled the cream toes to a beater and is distributed in trucks. The centres or soft interiors go to a coating machine, styled an which supplies the familiar chocolate coating, and then to the coolers and packers. Traveling platforms are employed where gravity is not available. In the modern candy factory the formulas used are exact, everything is measured and weighed and no guesswork permitted, hence spoiled batches are rare.