191.3. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 
COST OF CANNING TOMATOES. 
I notice in a former issue of The 
R. N.-Y. a communication from Robt. 
N. Merritt, wanting to be shown the 
cost of canning tomatoes. He does 
not say where he lives, but as his 
figures are very much lower than ours, 
I am forced to the conclusion that 
they are misleading, or that the canners 
in his section have us Eastern Shore 
canners skinned to a frazzle. This 
county (Dorchester) is the banner to¬ 
mato packing county in the United 
States, and I think our canners are as 
up-to-date in labor-saving machinery as 
any, but to pack the product of 300 acres 
here, takes from 80 to 100 people, where 
he says 15 to 20 do the work. It will take 
from 60 to 80 skinners to peel the to¬ 
matoes the way they yield here, and 
as there is no machine invented to do 
that work the labor cost cannot be 
cut there. We pay four cents per 12- 
quart bucket for peeling and 1 7 l / 2 cents 
per hour for unskilled labor up to 25’ 
cents per hour for skilled. A plant 
here of the size he mentions with ma¬ 
chinery included would cost at least 
$5,000. The accompanying slip explains 
itself. Please print it for the tomato 
growers’ benefit. I believe it to be ac¬ 
curate. 
From the best information obtainable we 
give below an estimate of the cost of pack¬ 
ing No. 3 Standard tomatoes in 1913, based 
on the 1912 cost, except cans, cases and 
caps, which are figured on 1913 season 
prices. This estimate is made on a most 
conservative basis. Many reports show much 
higher cost figures. 
Per case 
Cans at $17.25 per M.414 
Cases.13 
Freight on cans and cases.02 
S. H. Caps at $1.60 per M.0384 
Tipping solder.0045 
Tomatoes at $10 per ton.50 
Packing house labor.225 
Labeling, loading and unloading... .025 
Interest (including plant).035 
Insurance (including plant).03 
Labels .025 
Coal, gas and acid.025 
Leaks, swells and rusties.01 
General freight, express and inci¬ 
dentals .015 
Brokerage, commission, discount, 
taxes . .... 
Maintenance and repair and depre¬ 
ciation of plant.1105 
Net cost per case....(2 doz.) 1.6074 
Net cost per dozen.8037 
Mr. Merritt is like a good many farm¬ 
ers here who think the canners’ profits 
make the Standard Oil Company look 
like a piker. I have been in the busi¬ 
ness four years, and have not bought 
any Standard Oil stock yet. Now as 
to prices received for canned goods. 
Our sales in 1909 averaged 67cents 
per dozen No. 3 cans; 1910, 75 cents; 
1911, 80 cents; 1912, 85 cents. The 
lowest price received was 5 7 l /i cents, 
highest, $1. We only sold 1,000 cases 
at $1, as we were nearly sold out when 
they reached that figure. Canners call 
five cents per dozen a fair profit; gen¬ 
erally sell when they can get that. 
Enough of them do at any rate to fix 
the market. 
Farmers do not arrange so the can- 
ners can pack economically. They all 
plant about the same time, and make 
a short season, about three weeks glut¬ 
ted and overrun, the rest of the time 
not running full capacity. Then some 
farmers are not the guileless and in¬ 
nocent creatures pictured out to be, 
but try to work off rotten and green and 
otherwise unfit tomatoes on the canner, 
and when he cuts them gets very in¬ 
dignant. I asked a man who brought 
a load of inferior stuff if he would eat 
that after it was put in a can? He 
said no, but expected other people to. 
Some growers do not contract, but sell 
on the open market, as some cannery 
is generally short of contract goods 
during the season. An old trick of 
some growers used to be to contract 
for 10 acres and plant 15. If tomatoes 
were plentiful the grower never men¬ 
tioned the extra acres, but if they were 
scarce he had five acres to sell on the 
open market, and that five acres was 
apt to yield better than the contract 
patch. Then in a year of scarcity I have 
known men to take wagons and start 
out at night to buy tomatoes from 
growers who had contracted, and haul 
all night, and sell the next day, some¬ 
times selling the canner his own to¬ 
matoes at an advanced price. The 
tireenabaum cannery at Seaford, Del., 
one of the largest in the country, buys 
all its tomatoes on the open market. 
Human nature is alike in all classes; 
probably some canners try to take ad¬ 
vantage of the farmers. 
Now another cause of waste, un¬ 
avoidable it seems. Nearly all canners 
were short of skinners last T'ear, and 
only operated at two-thirds capacity 
probably. Owing to the large number 
of new canneries built last year, the 
supply of labor would not go around. 
Baltimore was raked over with a fine- 
tooth comb, and every person who could 
be cajoled to leave was obtained. The 
home labor is not sufficient to supply 
over half the help needed. Thousands 
of baskets of tomatoes rotted. Our 
capacity is 1,000 cases per day. We 
were running 600 to 800. The farmers 
encouraged the new canneries, thinking 
they would have more sale for their to¬ 
matoes, but if three canneries only do. 
the work of two, think of the extra 
overhead cost. We have three con- 
ncries in this place of about 100 in¬ 
habitants, the station below, two miles 
distant, three more, every other station 
on the railroad from one to three; on 
a siding where there is no station and 
only one house, a farmhouse at that, 
two more. 
Now for the growers’ side. I am a 
farmer as well as a canner, so can 
present both sides. I consider tomatoes 
a profitable crop at $9 per ton or 15 
cents per ^-bushel basket as we buy 
them. We get from 400 to 500 baskets 
per acre on our best land. They are 
like any other crop; on good land well 
cultivated they pay, on poor thin land 
poorly tended they do not. 
Maryland. f. h. richardson. 
Strawberry Plants as Personal Property. 
F. M. C .—Several years ago The R. N.-Y. 
stated the facts iu regard to a lawsuit to 
recover the value of strawberries and straw¬ 
berry plants by a tenant who set these 
plants out on a rented farm. Will you give 
these facts again for the benefit of another 
tenant? 
Ans. —The case referred to was tried 
in the local court of Bergen County, 
New Jersey. We will call the tenant 
A, the original owner of the farm B, 
and the second owner C. B leased a 
farm to A, with a clause stating that 
the lease shall terminate at any time 
on six months’ notice to the tenant. The 
farm was sold to C, and A continued 
to occupy it under the new owner, and 
upon the same terms as before the 
sale. Finally C served notice upon A 
that the lease would terminate at the 
end of six months. A in the year be¬ 
fore he was obliged to leave the farm 
had planted a patch of strawberries, 
and when his lease expired upon this 
notice he left them growing. When the 
strawberries were ripe A undertook to 
go upon the property and pick the crop, 
but he was prevented from doing so 
by C, on the ground that the strawber¬ 
ries became real estate when they were 
planted in the ground, and that thus 
the tenant had no more right in them 
than he would have in a building or a 
growing orchard. At the trial the jury 
placed the value of the plants and ber¬ 
ries at $100, and gave A a verdict for 
that amount. An appeal was taken to 
set this verdict aside, and the judge de¬ 
livered an opinion which makes the 
basis for this statement. The judge 
held that a strawberry crop under such 
conditions is purely personal property, 
and not permanently annexed to the 
freehold as would be trees or anything 
of a permanent nature. He held that 
there was a distinction between a straw¬ 
berry crop and a crop of blackberries 
or currants, the latter being more of 
a permanent crop when picked year 
after year. He held that strawberry 
plants are what are known in law as 
emblements, and that they in this re¬ 
spect are in the same class as rye, 
wheat, oats or any yearly crop. A 
crop of grass on the other hand would 
not come into this class, unless it is 
more of a permanent crop and to be 
cut year after year. The judge held 
that such a crop of strawberries would 
be clearly of a temporary character, and 
in the nature of beans, peas, tomatoes, 
or crops of a like nature, while bush 
fruits or trees would evidently be a 
part of the freehold, and thus real 
estate. 
When this opinion was given several 
years ago, a number of our straw¬ 
berry growers protested against it, on 
the ground that the strawberry crop 
as grown by many people is essentially 
a permanent one, nearly as much so as 
raspberries or blackberries. In our own 
case, we have fruited fields of straw¬ 
berries five or six years successfully; 
in fact it would not pay to plant straw¬ 
berries on the hill system we prac¬ 
tice it if only one crop of berries were 
to be picked. We give the record of 
this case, however, as the only legal 
statement that we know of regarding 
the crop. At law so far as we know 
the strawberry crop would be regarded 
as personal property, the plants not 
permanently attached to the soil, while 
bush fruits and orchards would be 
ranked as real estate. 
* 
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ON YOUR FARM OR COUNTRY ESTATE 
It is now time to plan and prepare for the summer planting. You can grow Alfalfa on your 
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Standard throu ghout the world 
P s . te ." - vo, ?, of t ', 19 method of growing Vetch with your spring planting of Oats to increase the Oat crop 
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