jets of water which shower them on every side. They are then ready for labeling.

Cans for baked beans are filled in similar manner, the proper amount of tomato sauce being put in by machines through silver-lined tubes while the cans are on the conveyer. Caps are placed on each can by hand, and the train bearing the filled cans passes through a sealing machine, where they are heated by small gas fires under neath. There they are soldered, twelve at a time. Then they are conveyed to a washing machine, where they are washed and cooled, and afterward stacked in iron baskets. The latter are then lifted by pneumatic cranes and placed in large retorts. After being hermetically sealed, they are subjected for a considerable length of time to live steam under great pressure, by the action of which they are thoroughly sterilized.

The cooking of fruits and vegetables for canning is now done in large copper kettles, having a steam jacket surrounding the lower half, which insures an even degree of heat. Any desired temperature can be obtained and the heat regulated to meet requirements. Formerly the method of cooking was in open kettles, and the highest temperature obtainable was 212° Fahrenheit, the temperature of boiling water. A little later, a higher degree of temperature was secured by the addition of common salt to the water, and this was followed by the use of chloride of calcium, by which a possible temperature of 240° was obtained. Under this process, however, the cans became discolored, involving considerable expense in cleaning them.

A closed-process kettle to cook the goods by superheating water with steam was shortly afterward invented, and next came the present style of kettle and dry steam. The canning of corn is so extensive an industry that it

deserves description by itself. About four million dollars a year represents the value of the corn bought from farmers by the various corn-canning establishments of the United States. The corn-canning industry belongs principally to two widely separated sections - the New England states, particularly Maine, and the middle western states. The New England canned corn is of the sweet white variety, while the western corn is yellow and less succulent.

Corn canning is now so systematized that the canning companies make annual contracts with large farmers for their yearly yield of marketable corn. These contracts are signed at the expiration of one season's business for the next year's growth. Then, as soon as the corn crop commences to mature the canners send representatives, known as field men, to make an inspection. Each field man watches the crop within a given area, and offers personal advice to each farmer in his territory as to when it should be gathered. Strange as it may seem, a lapse of even three days in the harvesting of the yield may make an important difference in the quality of the corn. If allowed to grow beyond its point of greatest succulence, it becomes tough and dry.

The work of canning corn is done almost wholly by machinery, in which many improvements have been introduced within the past two years. Formerly the corn was cut from the cob by hand, the grains then being placed in the can in a raw condition. After cooking for some time in the can, the latter was punctured to permit of the escape of the steam, and after resealing was given another boiling. Now the corn is partly cooked first and then is put into the can while hot, the final cooking being given in a retort or steam bath.

Twenty-five million dollars' worth of preserved fish

was the output of the fish canneries of the United States in 1903. Of this amount, the New England states contributed a little over ten million dollars' worth; the Pacific states, seven millions; and Alaska, five. More than two hundred million pounds of fish were preserved, of which Alaska supplied about sixty million pounds; Maine, fifty million; Washington, forty-five million; Oregon, seventeen million, and California, four million.

Few who enjoy the product of the sea which comes to them in gaily labeled cans, with a picture of a salmon or some other denizen of the deep holding the place of honor, know by what various methods the fish are taken from their native element and how many the operations are by which they are prepared for market. As in the canning of fruits, so with fish, mechanical devices have supplanted hand labor at every turn. Even the good old way of catching the fish with a hook or net has been largely discarded, and "machinery" now entraps the luckless victim of man's incessant search for food.

An ingenious contrivance which is used in catching salmon in the Columbia River, Washington, is an illustration of this. It is called the fish wheel, and consists of wire scoops, fastened to the spokes of an apparatus resembling a huge axle with a pair of crude cart wheels attached to it. This is lowered into the river, at a spot where the current is strong, and about a third is submerged, the force of the water serving to turn the wheel. Long leads guide the unsuspecting victims within reach of the scoops, the danger being concealed by the rapidly flowing water; a turn lifts them into the air, when they slide into receivers and the wheel rolls on for more booty. Forty tons of fish have been caught during twenty-four hours by one of these wheels, and the only manual effort required is the removing of the catch.

The modern fish cannery is a huge structure, topping rows of piles driven deep into the river or ocean bottom. The fish are unloaded into it from boats by a sort of single-tined pitchfork, and carried in automatic conveyers to different parts of the establishment. Within the building, the confused noise of machinery gives an impression of a manufacturing plant rather than of a cooking and tinning industry. Many improvements have been made within the last few years in the processes of canning fish. These have been chiefly in lessening the time of cooking, permitting the escape of heated air in the cans, softening the bones of the fish, and in the filling, capping, labeling and boxing of the cans.

The tests to which the cans are put to assure their being hermetically sealed are numerous. Besides immersion in water and other methods, a curious test is accomplished by a workman beating a rapid tattoo on the ends with a small piece of metal. The experienced ear of the workman — always a Chinaman detects by the variation in sound of a single blow when all is not right within. This work is done so rapidly that to a novice the occasional tossing aside of a defective tin is quite inexplicable.

Next in importance to the salmon-canning industry of the Pacific states is the sardine-canning of Maine. Sardines a general term applied to various small-sized fish are found in various parts of the world, the bestknown being the young of the pilchard, which are plentiful along the coast of France, and the young of the sea herring, found along the coast of Maine. The canning of sardines differs from that of salmon, in that the former are fried in oil and then placed in a can and covered with oil. Cottonseed oil mostly is used in the Maine canneries. The sardine is also put up in mustard, spices and tomato sauce.

The canning and preserving of oysters was formerly carried on as a part of the general industry of canning and preserving fish. Recently, however, the tendency has been toward differentiation, and the principal oyster canneries now engage in no other business. The "season" with them lasts about eight months, and during the other four months there is little activity.

The improvements in the methods of oyster canning have been as marked as in any branch of the canning industry. Formerly, the shells were opened by hand, with the oyster either in its natural state or scalded to make the "shucking" easier. Now, great piles of oysters are shoveled into cars with iron framework, twenty bushels or more to a car, and run into a steam-tight box, fitted with appliances for admitting the steam at any desired pressure. The steam is turned on for about fifteen minutes, when the chest is opened and the cars run into the shucking shed. There a deft turn of a knife in the hand of an experienced operator will open an oyster with remarkable dispatch. After being "shucked," the oysters are washed in cold water and sent to the "fillers' table," where they are placed in cans, weighed and hermetically sealed. Next the cans are lowered, in a cylindrical basket, into the "process-kettle," in which they are steamed in order to kill all germs or fermentation. Cooling in a large vat of cold water follows, and the oysters then are transferred to the labeling and packing department.

The average cost of handling a bushel of oysters in a modern cannery has been estimated at about twentyeight cents. Baltimore is the center of the oyster-canning industry of this country.