384 VINEGAR, CIDER, AND FRUIT-WINES. 



is, of course, the same, and they do not affect the mode of pack- 

 ing, it is not thought necessary to enter into any description of 

 them. 



In the foregoing an outline of the packing process has been 

 given, but nothing has been said of the many trials and vexa- 

 tions of a canner's life. If everything went always smoothly, it 

 would be as pleasant as any other business, but it does not. The 

 canner will early in the season employ his hands and commence 

 in a small way. He may start and run only two or three hours, 

 and for that length of time boilers will have to be fired up, help 

 got together, and at the close the factory cleansed the same as if 

 he had run the day out. Then, as the crop rapidly matures, work 

 becomes heavier, and at last the inevitable " glut" commences, 

 and he finds the products of 400 or 500 acres of perishable fruit 

 at his doors, may be 50 wagons, each owned by an impatient 

 farmer standing in the street waiting his turn to unload. That 

 is the time he has need of nerve ; help must be secured, every- 

 thing and everybody pushed to their utmost endurance, and from 

 early morning until way into the night, day after day, the work 

 goes on, help succumbs, and machinery breaks, but the factory 

 must move in storm and in sunshine. The work must go on, and 

 at last the agony is over, and the crop coming in again gradually 

 gives a little relief to the overworked people. And now the crop 

 is in, the farmer has brought his "good-bye" load, the force 

 places everything in winter-quarters, and with farewells and 

 thoughts of the future they separate for their homes and the 

 season in a tomato-canning factory is over. 



The taste for tomatoes being, as previously mentioned, an ac- 

 quired one, and the people of European countries being slow to 

 take hold of them, the principal market the canner has is in this 

 country and the demands made by sea-going vessels. The min- 

 ing regions of Pennsylvania and of other States use large quan- 

 tities, and they have now become a necessity in many households, 

 some of the working classes using them largely in place of meat. 

 That they are a nutritious, healthy article of food has been 

 clearly proved, and the low prices of the past few years have 

 placed them within the reach of all. It would be an impossi- 

 bility to correctly state the amount of capital invested or the 



