PROCEEDINGS OF THE WINTER MEETING. 21 



THE CANNING INDUSTRY. 

 BY MR A. W. SLAYTON OF GRAND RAPIDS. 



Did any of you yoimg chaps ever attend an old-fashion apple-paring 

 bee, fifty years ago? No? AVell, then, notwithstanding your 'phones and 

 3"0ur wheels and your base ball teams, you have not had all the world 

 has had worth living for^not yet. nor have I; and, since all our thoughts 

 must be of what is coming or of what is past, it is well to reflect that the 

 thoughts of the future are mostly airy nothings. Xot one in a thousand 

 will ever materialize, while thoughts of the past may float in the ethereal 

 ''what might have been," or may rest on the bed-rock of what was, 

 and so be a tangible reality, a ponderable substance, to be seen, heard, 

 tasted, enjoyed by the senses we now possess. Looking backward, there 

 is the old log house with its big kitchen, dining-room, and parlor all in 

 one, with the open fireplace at one end, and its swinging crane and 

 dangling pot-hooks parting the leaping fiames of a generous fire; while 

 the black teakettle simmers on a bed of coals at one side, its heavy lid 

 rattling time to the merry rhyme within; at the other side sits sedate 

 pussy, watching the ascending sparks and expressing her happiness in 

 a contented purr, while black Carlo snugs down near by, his outstretched 

 nose between his two paws, his hazel eyes opening now and then seem- 

 ing to ask, "Am I in the way? Won't you sit down?" 



It is an evening of the early November of fifty or more years ago. All 

 the boys and girls of the neighborhood (there were boys and girls in 

 those days) have been invited to the paring bee, and they come early, 

 for they are all willing to work, where there is more fun than work; and, 

 being seated in a row around the room, it somehow happens that a pair 

 of boots are in front of each alternate chair. Verily, the p-a-i-r pairing- 

 has begun. 



Empty pans or tins and sharpened knives are passed to each guest 

 by the mother of the house, while the father fetches in baskets of apples 

 and keeps all well supplied. At first all begin at paring, but soon it is 

 seen that the girls are the best at that and the boys are set to cutting 

 and coring, and thus an ecomonic excuse appears for each boy to be 

 seated by the side of some girl. I opine that it was at such a bee that 

 Darwin evolved his theory- of natural selection. 



You, John, were set to stringing the quarters, and with a big darning 

 needle and twine and a half hour's work you succeeded in getting a 

 string a foot long, and you pricked your fingers so much, and had to have 

 the needle threaded for you so often, that Samantha was sent to help 

 you — that is, to do the stringing while you laboriously- held the end of 

 the string. Awkward Jacob cuts his finger, and ready Rachel tied it up 

 with such a dainty rag and smile ihat I half wished it was my cut finger. 

 It is nearlv o'clock, and there is but one basket more, so fun comes in 

 faster. Tlie girls try to see which can pare an entire peeling from stem 

 to blossom without break, and Susan first succeeds. She steps to the 

 middle of the room, takes the long ])ecling by one end, swings it around 

 her head three times and drops it. and all see that it has formed a good 

 letter S on the. floor; that means that the luck}- one's name begins with 



