UTILIZING THE FRUIT 217 



plentiful and his neighbors all have enough. Thus 

 he is left with a big crop on his hands. Then, with 

 a good canning outfit, he and his family, the 

 hired man and the hired girl can put up the bulk 

 of the crop in good tin cans, turning them off dur- 

 ing the winter and converting a dead loss into a 

 clean and handsome profit. 



Such home canning outfits are obtainable on the 

 market at all prices from $5 up to several hundred. 

 A good farm outfit, capable of putting up 3,000 cans 

 a day or more, can be bought for $100. It is easily 

 set up and easily operated by anyone who has rea- 

 sonable mechanical ingenuity and who is capable of 

 any good clean piece of work at any other job. The 

 full directions for installing and operating these out- 

 fits are supplied by the manufacturers, so that fur- 

 ther details need not be given here. 



THE CANNING INDUSTRY 



The practice of canning fruit for winter use is 

 peculiar to America. In many countries it is hardly 

 known, and nowhere is it practiced to the same ex- 

 tent, or anywhere near it, as in the United States 

 and Canada. The peach is the prime favorite for 

 canning, whether in the home kitchen or in the 

 biggest canning factories. It is the easiest to handle, 

 it keeps the best and it comes out in the winter in 

 the most acceptable quality. For all these reasons 

 it is put up in enormous quantities. Gould and 

 Fletcher have compiled statistics to show somewhat 

 of the extent of this industry, and these figures are 

 given herewith as showing the amounts of peaches 

 put up in 1904 by the commercial canning factories. 

 The amount put up in home kitchens cannot be esti- 

 mated, but it may be roughly guessed at 50 per cent 

 of the amount canned in factories. 



