LABELING CANs 187 
a drier and be waterproof. In small factories the stamping is done 
by hand. [t 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 aud stamped cans are placed, with 
caps down, in wooden trays holding twenty-four medium-sized 
cans. All travs of one batch are stacked together. .\ card in- 
dicating uumber 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 seais. 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 mulk, if any 
seals are defective, a little condensed milk will have oozed out 
by that time. Inexpericnced sealers are prone to cause a high 
percentage of leaky cans. .\ careful sealer may reduce the num- 
ber of leakers to .1 per cent. 
In the case of evaporated milk (unsweetened, sterilized) all 
eans 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 hbe- 
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 sdund 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- 
