The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1897-05-05

There's No Reason Why Paw Paw shouldn't
Have a. Big Institution.

There's No Reason why raw raw SHOULDN'T
Have Big Institution.
As cannery is soon To be in opera
tion in Paw Paw, the Northernel thin ks
a description of "A prosperous factory OF
this kind will not prove uninteresting,
so publishes the following from the
Sycamore Qlls.) True Republican:
The Sycamore Preserve Works has
done a large business for many years in
canning corn, peas, pumpkins, beans
and other vegetables. Hundreds OF
acres near Sycamore are devoted To the
production of these vegetables, the
factory contracting with the farmers for
raising them. For several months as
many as 800 hands are employed in the
fields picking, while another force is at
work in the factory cooking and can
ming. When it is known that this
factory prepares and cans 80, 900 cans of
corn, which means 80 tons, in "a single
day, some idea of the immensely of the
work is obtained. One would think
that good, neat work could not be done
with such rapidity, but the fact is the
product of the Sycamore Preserve
Works is as clean, as evenly cooked
and favored, apd as neatly packed as
the most careful housewife could do It,.
Long experience and consequently
thorough knowledge of the process, and
of the demands of the market, with
painstaking care. make this possible.
Yet corn thus put up sells for only 20
cents a dozen cans. No wonder that
people prefer TO buy canned vegetables
instead of going TO the labor and ex-
pense of canning them themselves.
"Within few weeks this company
10 al 30 Ial; .Nf
their goods, each case containing "a
two.pound cans, To single firm.
''This is rather an old story to the
people of Sycamore and vicinity, though
the development of this business has
been rapid. But the growth of the
tin-can factory, which has got to be
almost a separate industry, has been
still more rapid, and with its interest.
ing process our readers are not so
familiar.
when the Preserve Works began
operating and for several years there
after they bought all of their cans, and
many carloads were shipped here from
abroad every season. But a can costs as
much AS the goods to be put in it, and a
the cans. The work was mostly done
W manu. but OCNCl al WClC
ployed about all the year, but as the
business grew they could not produce
enough, and the decreasing prices of
canned goods made the cheap produc-
ton of cans of much Importance. just
as soon as practical machine was in.
vented to help reduce the cost of cans
the Sycamore factory bought it. Mach
inc after machine was added, this
factory always Eaaninn In tho front
rank of tincan manufacturers, until
now there are probably not over doz.
en- tin-can factories IN American that
can equal in it the amount or the quail
ity of the production.
"A new building which the men call
the lean shop" located south of the
factory and adjoining the Northwestern
tracks, has just been completed. 1t is
two stories high and 80 by 80 feet in
dimensions. On the first floor are the
can-making machines, of which there
are fifteen.
Tin made in Indiana is used 1t is
about IA by 30 inches in size. February
last 1000 boxes were bought. 1t costs
about 80 a box. This amount will not
last long at the present rate.
Some of these sheets are first fed
into the slitters and circular shears,
two machines which cut them into
strips of sizes to make the cy Under of
the can. Other of the whole sheets are
run into machines called punches, of
which there are six, some of which
makes bottoms of cans, others make
tops, and others make "caps," these
latter being the little circular pieces
about the size of silver dollar which
are reserved to close the cans after they
have been filled. All of these machines
stamp out and put seams in the edges
of the circular pieces of tin as fast as
the feeders can get the tin into them
Next comes the wonderful "side
seamer," new machine which takes
the flat strips of tin, before mentioned,
bends them around in the form of the
can, clinches them there, rubs on the
tlux, soldiers the seam firmly and heater
than could be done by hand, cools them
by draft of air ard piles them into a
bushel basket at a rate of one second
keeping one man busy taking away the
basketsful of cylinders.
These cylinders then come in con-
tact with the top and bottom disks
which have been turned out by the
punches" Something like a dozen
hands are kept busy at big table fit
ting these tops and bottoms on the