you just know it's getting close nosebag time for here comes the star boarder nothing but a torn junior away from that sand lot ball game but an empty inner boy hollering for he here that mary butler know her appetite appeal it's delmonte early garden peas tonight and when those succulent green gems go on the table as a party to that roast well can't you just smell that denotes that for a king i was a boy we had a small vegetable garden not far from the kitchen door one piece when seasoned mother used to let me out take them sheehan your aunt carrie used to show them by hand and i raise think how much easier it is why we can have fresh peas any day in the year grown especially for canning great farms like th monte plant planted to bring each bill to perfection in proper succession that canning may continue in full swing rhythm throughout the season here during the black hawk war a trio of famous men abraham lincoln zachary taylor and countryside breeze of social and economic life that hinges on the harvest and canning of vegetables for the market baskets of the world as the season nears conversation on every hand turns to one major question how is the pa this year when the pounds are well filled and the harvest heavy there is work for everyone and community prosperity from the surrounding fields endless truckloads of p s harvested just at the instant nature says ready converge on big galleries like this one located at strategic points wherever the piece grow best long before the vines in the fields poked their tent rose above ground their muddy field men were busy on soil tests fertilization selection of seed and painstaking soil preparation lending every scientific aid to develop the finest p that can be grown for its in the field and in the field alone that quality is made now with the vines full grown every safeguard is taken to protect that quality right into the ca every field must be cut when the peas are just so timing counts and how one hour too early or too late and that crime comedy may be lost forever comes the zero hour and harvesting began their parts are just busting their buttons with on the minute freshness there is not an hour to lose and the motors move in to capture that june morning flavor right off the vine there is no twiddling thumbs when nature is the time keeper from the minute the field tracker gives his go ahead it's a race of men and machines against time it's a chain of many links this harvest job each dependent on the other if only one machine fails with chain is broken old canning sequence thrown out of strike when the vines are covered with you and the pans are crisp and snappy when the peas are at their peak that's when the more goes to town i tailing its way down the p cheers off each vine like barber clippers on the back of your neck and then mike a juggler that does a different trick with either hand roll them into tidy windrows ready for the loading crews that follow right behind relentlessly the wagon trains move down the windows pictures on either side holding a steady pace to keep in motion the rhythmic cycle from cutting to canning there's no stop sign for these men until the wagon and if you've never worked on a farm just try that on your sake  but maybe this type of pitchfork is more to your liking fast mechanical loaders to speed up the harvest on big farms like this straddling the rose so as not to injure the pod it carries its own passport to any spot in the field its endless grapplers gentle as a kitten pick up the vines take them for an escalator ride and toss them lightly on to them both more and more delmonte uses such high speed equipment to step up to harvest pace to circus elephants linked to tail the wagon train lumbers across the fields to the vining station for the next chapter or of the progress and so the harvest job goes on often through the night there's only one moment in the life of every piece be old when nature says now is the time to act and be at dawn or midnight that's the instant del monte man spring into action only such vigilance can capture the tenderness and flavor for which the del monte label always stand short moments away from the harvest fields the peas arrive at the cannery where they wonder perhaps what are these fellows doing but they'll have to get used to constant inspection by the time they're ready for the shiny tin that the other end of the cannery they will be the most scrutinized piece in the world here is the dispatch room that starts the pieces over the packing line from here on every p c will pass through test after test elimination after elimination until at the end only the very primaries will have wonders purrs for the del mont early got unpacked from start to finish it's every piece for himself and only the fit survive shoot the chutes in clean fresh water so regulated that p s pass over while heavier matter is trapped in the ripples then they get taken for a ride by a spiral conveyor that boosts them along to a rotary washer being heavier than water these things to the bottom bits of stems leaves or skins are skimmed off the top by now mr and mrs p began to think life in a cannery is one long saturday night in the rotary w the next operation gives two things an elevator ride and a bubble bath as the piece travel up a pipe conveyer to the top floor of the cannery the water that carries them is bubbled to constantly by a stop and go surge of water every little piece goes the water separator dreams the p s and at the same time eliminates loose skins and broken pieces blending of just the right sizes to give that natural june morning taste so characteristic of the early garden blend no one size or serve a piece can do it alone no hit or miss assortment of sizes can do it either so let's see what goes into the del mar the early garden plan please please that for their portrait just as they came off the vines a jumbled collection of mixed up sizes many of them just don't have what it takes for delmonte so let's put them through the grader and sort them into their respective sizes now as peas grow in size their flavor undergoes mark changes these two young fellows are we can watery flavor hasn't yet had a chance to develop so delmonte says after you go as peas approach old age their sugars change to start so these overgrown ones hard and starchy they're flavor gone are ruled out too it's the blending of those in between sizes that gives the now feel the pot son she'd say take just the best one so wildly puny little black ones that had no flavor and the big old ones were hard and starchy and take just the prime plump so good are preserved nicely segregated into proper sizes but now another say god the quantity greater gives them a double check for prime perfection in its continuous brine bath and a hard star ch this is just one more safeguard to the quantity of that early garden  after this careful working over the peas roll off the belt and into hoppers that channel them into the blending glue these bring together pieces of the selected sizes not too young not too old but just those exactly right in between sizes to produce that natural delicate right off the vine flavor there's no hit or miss no guesswork and that famous delmonte pack on the selected middle sizes come together in the final blend you get a balance of the they take their first hot water plant winding up a cleaning job that started way back at the other end of the cannery and then just as you do when your own child of a morning the freeze jump under that last call spray on the shaker washer by now every one of those ambitious young peas knows it's been places and no mistake about it comes now the final audio a rigid inspection of a broken pieces or discolored specimen of a pea can get by this gauntlet of sharp eyed eliminators it can throw out its chest and say i am a world champion i made good why all this trouble all this comes to the inspection the careful selection and painstaking elimination because delmonte is determined that any product under its label will be the best that nature science man and machines combined can produce that's the answer these are the prime days of the harvest skillfully blended to produce that succulent right from the garden flavor uniform in color uniformly tender as perfect as nature could make them it's the last laugh now and those tender piece like a jewel morning picking at you through a window are lined up at attention awaiting their turn at the filling machine just before the fill each can get a cleansing blast of live steam canning is a fast tempo climax that happens faster than you can say down monday and the filling machine little less than human fills each can at the rapid fire rate of three to the second than away very much like an endless parade of proud tin soldiers into the automatic sealer where caps are crimped on and the ready for the cookers huge pressure cookers checked and checked again by rigid time and temperature controls only a short while before the p these inside those cans were growing in the fields and a man's language that's  just the story of domo d p the story of quality started long before the seeds themselves were planted in the soil acorn of a nurtured in the fields by scientific conservation improved in the calorie by careful selection and exacting supervision and made available under the famous delmonte label to housewives everywhere from field to cannery it's one continuous cycle of unremitting care of man methods and machines all dedicated to one idea that