Report No. 2 (1921). 



REMARKS ON CANNING. 



CHAPTER I. 

 Origin of Canning. 



This industry is necessarily one of modern development ; 

 necessarily because it involves containers absolutely air, water, and 

 steam proof under all conditions, while bacteriological science can 

 alone explain difficulties and failures other than mechanical and 

 point out the remedy. The honour of the discovery is due to a 

 Frenchman, M. Appert, who in 1809 announced his method of 

 placing putrescible and fermentible articles in containers which, 

 when hermetically sealed and heated to boiling point, indefinitely 

 preserved the contents in good condition. An Englishman about 

 the same time took out a patent for the use of tin plate containers 

 of such articles, but the discovery is due to M. Appert who for, it 

 is said, some fifty years (note the period) had practically dealt 

 with and studied the preservation of articles of food. 



2. The methods of M. Appert, though they would now be 

 deemed slow and primitive, were identical in principle with those 

 in use at this day, the results have been unsurpassed in durability, 

 and in certain cases unequalled. But, chiefly owing to American 

 ingenuity and necessity, the art of canning has enormously 

 developed both in rapidity, neatness of execution, immensity of 

 output, and a cheapness and general excellence of goods which 

 could not have been dreamed of in 1809. In America the annual 

 output of canned goods is numbered by the thousand million cans 

 (over 3,000 millions in 1914, valued at £120,000,000 sterling) of fruit, 

 vegetables, meats, and tish ; nn other country approaches it in the 

 quantity and variety of its canned goods, though supreme excellence 

 in certain lines, e.g., of fish, especially of sardines, is probably 

 found in French factories. 



The simple discovery that goods packed in hermetically sealed 

 containers and then sterilised by heat, could be kept in sound and 

 good condition for years together, has developed the present 

 enormous industry. 



3. The original need for canning and its vast development are 

 due to the desires and demands of rich and civilised communities 



