56 



of lading, and that is about the best you can do. I have 

 tried them all, and if you buy in less than carload lots you 

 have to pay $10 a thousand more, so that if you are going 

 into it in a small way your can would cost you $52 a thous- 

 and f. o. b. shipping point. It costs a lot of money for the 

 cans and the cases. It cost me 78 cents, laid down in my 

 shop, for a dozen, cans and cases alone, before we began 

 work. That is a figure that makes you stop and think. 

 Also, there is absolutely no use in starting unless you have 

 got an abundant supply of good labor cheap — not cheap la- 

 bor, but good labor cheap — female preferred for most of the 

 canning work. Then if you have many women around you 

 have got to have a licensed fireman, and we use a steam en- 

 gine, because, having the steam, it seemed to be the cheapest 

 to use that. You have got to have a licensed engineer and 

 firemen, and your boiler has got to pass inspection. Then 

 you have to have, for canning apples, a coring and paring 

 machine and an assortment of knives and tables and buckets. 

 Personally, I came down to the fibre pail. I like to have 

 plenty of water, an abundance of steam, and some sunshiny 

 place and somebody with me that knows how. That is what 

 you have got to have when you start out. The man I had 

 cost me sixty cents an hour for every hour he was on the job, 

 and if on the other hand we were shut down two hours, I 

 didn't pay him. I figured that was cheaper than paying him 

 by the week, and he was worth the money, because he Avas 

 fireman and electrician and what-not ; he could do most every- 

 thing. We took every old apple I had, at the start, and put 

 them on the paring machine, and from there they dropped 

 into a tub of water, and from there they were shoveled onto 

 a table — using an iron scoop — to the women, and there is 

 the whole product, classed as No. 1, 2, or 3. by the work 

 done on that table by those women. They take the apples 

 as they come from the machine, peeled and cored. Theoret- 

 ically the core is out, but one man standing in front of those 

 machines would feed just as fast as he could, and sometimea 

 the machines take the cores out, and sometimes they take a 



