15& 



CANNING INDUSTRY IN CALIFORNIA 



This class of products figures heavily in the exports of the United States, as shown in the following 

 exhibit. 



Domestic Exports. Years Ended June 30. (Statistical Abstract, 1906). 



The literature of canning and preserving is scattered in bulletins of a few agricultural colleges and 

 stations, the national Department of Agriculture, the trade journals, proceedings of societies, in the agri- 

 cultural press and a few books. The writers in this chapter suggest the following titles : H. W. Conn, 

 Bacteria, Yeasts and Molds in the Home ; Mrs. Sarah T. Rorer, Canning and Preserving ; Hester M. Poole, 

 Fruits : How to Use Them ; Fletcher Berry, Fruit Recipes ; Gesine Lemcke, Preserving and Pickling. 

 Farmers' Bulletins : No. 93, Mary Hinman Abel, Sugar as Food ; No. 203, Maria Parloa, Canned Fruits, 

 Prbserves and Jellies ; No. 183, Andrew Boss, Meat on the Farm. Cornell Reading-Course for Farmers' 

 Wives, Bulletin No. 20, Series IV, Canning and Preserving. 



Following are a few of the technical publications on this subject : Art and Science of Canning, 

 published by Canner and Dried Fruit Packer, Chicago ; E. W. Duckwall, Canning and Preserving of Food 

 Products, with Bacteriological Technique, Aspinwall, Pa.; C. A. Shinkle, American Commercial Methods 

 of Manufacturing Pickles, Preserves and 

 Canned Goods, Canyon City, Colo.; Sci- 

 ence and Experiment as Applied to Can- 

 ning, published by The Sprague Canning 

 Machinery Company, Chicago (1902); pa- 

 pers by W. Lyman Underwood and S. C. 

 Prescott, entitled Microorganisms and Ster- 

 ilization in the Canning Industries, Tech- 

 nology Quarterly, Vol. X, No. 1, and Vol. 

 XI, No. 1, Boston (1896, 1897). 



The mutual relations of canning fac- 

 tories and farming are very intimate, one 

 dictating to some extent the methods of 

 the other. These relations have probably 

 developed as far in California as elsewhere, 

 and a brief account of them may serve to 

 express the nature of the problems and 

 progress involved, as well as to supply 

 information of a certain region. 



Fig. 231. Cbetiy oictaard, tbe fruit used largely for canning. 



CANNING INDUSTRY IN CALIFORNIA 



By C H. Bentley 



Owing to the wide variation in soil and climate, 

 there is great divergence in the canning products 

 and the canning industry in the states of the Pacific 

 coast and Rocky mountains. 



California, having a climate favoring the widest 

 range of products and a location best suited for 

 marketing them, has shown the largest develop- 



ment in this industry. With the rapid increase in 

 fruit crops throughout the state, large tracts of 

 land have been set out without regard to any 

 particular market. Nearly every fruit-growing 

 community in turn has found it difiicult, if not 

 impossible, to market the crop in the fresh condi- 

 tion. The local cannery, often started on a semi- 

 cooperative plan by growers and other interested 

 parties, has been a natural though rarely success- 

 ful development. When operated on a strictly 

 business-like basis, it has given reasonably good 

 returns to the owners. In some cases, the canner 



