LABELING CANS 187 



a drier and be waterproof. In small factories the stamping is done 

 by hand. It can be done very rapidly. In large factories an auto- 

 matic stamping outfit is attached to the filling, sealing or labeling 

 machine and the cans are stamped automatically while they are 

 being filled, sealed or labeled. 



Inspecting. The sealed and stamped cans are placed, with 

 caps down, in wooden trays holding twenty-four medium-sized 

 cans. All trays of one batch are stacked together. A card in- 

 dicating number and date of batch and number of cans in the 

 batch is attached to the stack and a copy of the same is filed in 

 the office. The cans are placed with their caps down in order to 

 detect "leakers" (cans with defective seals). Before labeling, 

 the trays should be taken down, the cans turned over and exam- 

 ined for leaky seals. Unless the factory is behind in filling- orders 

 the cans will have been in stock at least twenty-four hours or 

 usually longer. In the case of sweetened condensed milk, if any 

 seals are defective, a little condensed milk will have oozed out 

 by that time. Inexperienced sealers are prone to cause a high 

 percentage of leaky cans. A careful sealer may reduce the num- 

 ber of leakers to .1 per cent. 



In the case of evaporated milk (unsweetened, sterilized) all 

 cans coming from the incubating room should be individually 

 shaken by hand. All cans showing no signs of bulging, and the 

 contents of which shake with the characteristic sound and be- 

 havior of a liquid, pass inspection. If the ends of the cans are 

 bulging or the contents do not respond to the shaking with the 

 characteristic sound of normal milk, they are rejected, as the 

 evaporated milk in them has either undergone gaseous or cur- 

 dling fermentation, and is spoiled. 



LABELING. 



Labeling Machines. In the early days of the milk condens- 

 ing industry, the labeling of the cans was done by hand, involv- 

 ing much time and considerable expense. Today, especially con- 

 structed labeling machines are almost exclusively used for this 

 purpose. The efficiency and quality of work of these machines 

 are such, that they have become a permanent fixture in practi- 

 cally every condensery selling canned goods. The labeling ma- 



