The Savannah tribune. [volume] (Savannah [Ga.]) 1876-1960, 1888-04-14
CANNED GOODS.
History and Progress of this
Great American Industry.
The Boom a Continental War
Would Make in the Trade.

The armies of England and Franco
are fed now very largely on American
beef in cans. If the armies arc increased
and the productive forces of the two
countries are impaired by reason of
war, the trade will assume greater pro-
portions than ever. The proportions
now arc staggering. From Chicago
alone long trains of cars leave daily for
the east, each car holding ten tons of
canned beef. When "beef critter' is
slain about one third of him is valuable
to the butchers who deal in fresh meat.
The parts, however, that are least
salable go into the cans. Plates, bris-
kets, jowls, cuts and occasionally the
entire carcass of COW all go to make
up the canned beef supply The much
abused Texas steer, when he is too
tough for the fresh meat butcher, gen
orally finds his way into the cans.
THE scientists are continually lnvcsti-
eating the canned meat, and not infre-
quently find new and startling poisons
of the most virulent character. Any
one of the atoms, according to scientific
analysis, is deadly enough to destroy a
regiment, and it seems strange, from a
chemical point of view, that anybody
remains alive after eating this danger
Gus food. AS matter of fact, however,
millions of people have been eating 1t
for years, and there is no well authenti-
Gated case of injury arising from the use
of canned beef unless the beef had been
injured in some way after the can was
opened.
Beef, however, and the standard vege-
tables arc the great staples that form
very considerable fraction of the ocean
carrying trade The beef trade alone is
big enough and important enough to
justify the writing of many books
about it.
Everybody knows how the business
began. In 1920, NJ. Appert, a scientif-
ic Frenchman, knowing the chemical
fact that cooked food could be kept
from decomposition if the air were kept
from it, patented method of packing
such food in glass. Not much was done
on his patents however, and it was
fifteen or twenty years later when an
English firm began packing meat in tin
as a regular article of commerce. Their
processes, however, were crude com
pared with those Of to-day, and it re-
manned for American skill to perfect the
work within the last dozen years. This
has been done, and now almost every
article Of perishablo food is Theoretically
packed in tin for preservation and trans
portation to the time and place in which
it is to be used.
You can buy canvas-back ducks in
cans. Corncd beef pIum-puddings,
shrimps, baked beans, fowls, fish, cur
ried foods, soups and roast beef, in
short almost everything good to cat can
be and is done up in portable shape, SO
that it can be taken to Bombay or Lap
land without deteriorating in quality.
TO return to the beef, however, it
may be said roughly that about one
half Of good animal Is canned and
onc-half used fresh. Perhaps two hun
drcdwcight, on an average, of the
cooked meat from a single animal goes
into the cans, so that each car load Of
canned meat that comes east contains
portions Of hundred beasts. This is
only an estimate, but it is fair one.
When it is remembered that there arc
many thousands Of these carloads an
nually and that steamers and sailing
vessels are constantly scattering the
contents all over the globe, the i'm
portance Of the tin can becomes appar-
ent It has opened an avenue for the
profitable disposal of one OF the princi-
pal food products Of the world. De-
spised only few years ago as a thing
only fit to be cast out and trodden under
foot Of man and dcgourcd by goats, tho
humble can has brought millions OF
specie into our nations Golfers and car
ried good food to many other nations