58 GARDEN PROJECT 
army travels on its stomach,’’ offered a prize for a 
method of preserving fruit and vegetables. Thereupon 
a Frenchman discovered ‘‘canning.”’ 
From a modest beginning canning has grown until 
now there are five methods known and in use, namely: 
1. The open kettle or hot pack method. 
2. The intermittent, or fractional sterilization 
method. 
The cold water method. 
The vacuum seal method. 
The cold pack, single period method. 
The open kettle process. In the open kettle process, 
the product is cooked in an open kettle, then poured 
into a sterilized container and sealed up. Fruits may 
be canned by this process but products readily at- 
tacked by bacteria cannot be preserved in this way. 
This is due to the fact that some air containing spores 
is carried in as the product is poured into the jar; 
another objection to this method is the overcooking of 
products and the resulting loss of flavor. 
The intermittent method. To overcome these ob- 
jections the fractional or intermittent sterilization 
method was devised. In this method the products 
were cooked in the jars or cans. It was thought neces- 
sary to repeat this operation on three successive days, 
scaling the jars up after each boiling; hence the name 
intermittent. By this method all of the spores which 
escaped the first boilings were eventually killed. The 
objections to this method were its expenditure of fuel, 
time and labor. 
Cold water method. The cold water method suc- 
ceeds quite well with such products as rhubarb and 
gooscberries. The jars are filled with the products 
and cold water and then sealed under water to pre- 
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