382 VINEGAR, CIDER, AND FRUIT-WINES. 



quickly and properly, a heavy box of white pine is fitted with 

 both steam and water pipes and attached to it is an iron cradle 

 swinging on hinges and raised and lowered by a wheel and pulley 

 suspended above. On the back of this is placed a box, and as the 

 farmer hands off his baskets they are emptied into this box, and 

 at the command of the man at the rope, who is called the 

 " scalder/' they are dumped into the boiling water beneath. A 

 few seconds suffice to clean and scald them ; the cradle is then 

 raised and the tomatoes are poured into kettles set in front of the 

 scalder to receive them. 



While this has been going on a group of women and girls have 

 been filing into the factory and seating themselves along the trays 

 that are to receive the tomatoes from the scalder. These trays are 

 of different construction, but are similar as regards length, breadth,- 

 and depth, the only difference being in the various ways of get- 

 ting rid of the water and juice. This is generally done by mak- 

 ing a slat frame fit in the bottom and over a trough fastened under 

 the tray. This leads to a drain, which carries it to the creek or 

 wherever else it is to go. At each tray are from ten to twelve 

 women, each of them furnished by the packer with a bowl and 

 knife, and provided at their own expense with a neat water-proof 

 apron. The tomatoes are dumped from the kettles in front of 

 them, and they remove rapidly the already loosened skins and 

 cores and deposit the prepared fruit in a bucket sitting beside 

 them. They become so efficient that a smart active woman will 

 frequently skin from 40 to 60 buckets a day, and as they receive 

 4 cents per bucket it Avill be seen they make fair wages. Standing 

 just beyond the women are the machines which fill the cans. To 

 describe them would be impossible, there being so many shapes 

 and many makes. Some are very good, some very poor, every 

 man thinks his the best, and so it goes, but in one respect they all 

 agree : they have a hopper into which the fruit is poured from the 

 buckets, and all have the plunger which forces the fruit into the 

 cans ; the treadles of some of them are moved by hand and some 

 by steam. The machines rapidly fill can after can, which are then 

 set on the " filling table" and receive " top them off/ 7 or in other 

 words the fruit is cleared away from the top of the can so that the 

 solder used in capping them will not become chilled. They are 



