370 REPOET OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



or should be so. Each can is tested by an expert, wbo ascertains by 

 sounding if there is any defect. If so it is thrown out, but if found 

 perfect the cans are run through steam and washed in hot water to 

 remove all particles of grease from the outside, and are then plunged 

 into a bath of cold water to collapse them. The only remaining 

 process is the lacquering and labeling. This is done by girls and 

 women. 



Chip beef is pickled for thirty days, in the same way as corned 

 beef. It is afterwards smoked for forty-eight hours, like hams, and 

 hung in the drying-room for ten days or two w^eeks, where it dries 

 in the natural air, It is then sliced by machinery and placf^d in 

 boxes for market. 



Extract of beef is prepared in vacuum pans, by a process which 

 extracts from the material only its nutritive properties. Twenty- 

 one pounds of beef, treated by this process, yield one pound of thick 

 extract. Twelve pounds of beef yield one pound of liquid extract. 

 One ounce of thick extract will bear the addition of forty ounces of 

 water, and will then form a rich soup. One ounce of liquid extract 

 will bear ten ounces of water. Prime cuts of beef are used for this 

 purpose, of necessity, because the process requires that the material 

 employed shall contain as little gelatinous matter as possible. As 

 prepared in the Chicago canneries the extract of beef is a light choco- 

 late color. It has neither the dark hue, the burnt taste, nor the pe- 

 culiar odor which pertains to extracts prepared in South and Central 

 America. 



Ox and other tongues are cured in the chill-room, are carefully 

 examined for blemishes, and such as are found perfect are skinned 

 and placed in cans, one ox tongue to a can, and sorted according to 

 sizes. The cans are soldered, lacquered, and labeled as with corn 

 beef. 



In the preparation of soups, etc. , skilled ohefs are employed, and 

 the soups are made and cooked as they would be in a first-class hotel 

 or restaurant, except that they are not cooked to a finish, a margin 

 being left for the steaming process they have to undergo in canning 

 and for the warming over to which they will be subjected before 

 being brought to the table. For chicken soup chickens are purchased, 

 ready dressed, in the country, many thousand pounds at a time. They 

 are partly cooked; the breasts, legs, and wings are cut up and packed 

 in cans, in the proportion of eight ounces of solid meat to a 2-pound 

 can. The rest of tne chicken is boiled down into ' ' stock " and added 

 to the meat until the can is filled. It is then placed in a steam bath 

 and soldered as other goods. 



All the principal canning establishments make their own cans* 

 They use the best steel-plate tin, the best solder, and invariably sol- 

 der from the outside, thus avoiding all danger of so-called "can 

 poisoning" which occasionally arises from the practice of soldering 

 from the inside of the can. 



OLEO OIL. 



The product known to commerce as oleo oil is obtained from the 

 fat of beef -cattle. Immediately after the animal is slaughtered the 

 caul or Bbdominal fat is removed, carefully washed, and gassed 

 through a series of vats of cold water until the animal heat is en- 

 tirely eliminated. The fat is then chopped by machinery and dumped 

 into vats of broken ice, where it is chilled. It is fed from these vats, 



