No. G. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 273 



INCREASING CAPACITY. 



If success attends the niauagemeiit of a small factory and the ex- 

 perience of a few years warrants expausion, it is not a diflicult mat- 

 ter to iutroduce the modern machinery which has reached a high de- 

 gree of perfection and is made to replace most of the hand labor of 

 the small factory. In a factory with a capacity of 40,000 cans per 

 day we find two 60 H.P. boilers to supply steam and power instead 

 of one lo n. r. boiler, a power scalding machine that will do the 

 work of ten men, a platform conveyor for the peeli«g tables to carry 

 the peeled fruit to the filling machine. The Lockwood Gang To- 

 mato Filler easily fills 40,000 cans in ten hours. This outfit in- 

 cludes also special machinery for capping the cans and a sufficient 

 number of process kettles to do the cooking as fast as the filled cans 

 can be furnished. Such machinery is expensive, but when it is run 

 at its full capacity the cost of canning is greatly reduced. When 

 special lines of goods are to be canned in large quantities, it becomes 

 necessary to have special machinery, as for instance, for corn there 

 is needed one or more cot'ii cutting uiachmes. These machines cut 

 the green corn from the cob more perfectly than can be done by hand, 

 and receive the ears as rapidly as an operator can place them in 

 position in the trough that feeds the knives. Such machines cost 

 from $150 to $300 according to the style and capacity. A cor?i silk- 

 ing machine is used to remove the silk and bits of cob from the corn 

 after it is cut from the cob, such machines vary in price from $50 to 

 $200 each. 



In large factories making a specialty of packing peas, is used a 

 pea hulling machine which will hull from 500 to 1,000 bushels of 

 peas in a day without bruising or crushing the peas. Other special 

 machinery is a pea cleaner which is a slowly revolving screen 

 cylinder that removes pieces of pods and other coarse particles, and 

 a pea separator which is a revolving perforated cylinder that grades 

 the peas into various sizes. A hulling machine costs about $1,500, 

 and the separator costs about $300. The Automaiic Fea I^iiler and 

 JBriner is another valuable piece of anachinery in the pea factory. It 

 may be set to fill the cans with an exact amount of peas, and a hot 

 brine of a definite quantity is automatically poured into each can. 



Another machine that greatly aids io increasing capacity in a fac- 

 tory is the Hawkins capping machine. There have been capping 

 machines in use for more than ten years, but all of them entailed 

 considerable labor and confusion. With them it was necessary to 

 place by hand a dozen warm cans upon a tray, by hand feed the 

 tray to the capper and by hand take away the tray after the cap- 

 ping and after taking out the cans return the tray for another dozen 



18—6—1902 



