The wageworker. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1904-????, 1905-07-28
The UBIQUITOUS Tin Can

Of course you remember that old
chestnut that went the rounds a few
years ago to the effect that an Eng
lish tourist doing Kansas asked a
demure Kansas maid en- what they did
with SO much corn.
20, We eat what we can, and what
we can't we can," she replied.
In relating the experience to friends
at home the Englishman said:
Il awsked her what they did with
SO much corn, don't yer know, and
she replied that they ate what they
could and what they couldn't they
timed, don't you know. Funniest
thing l ever heard, but it seems to
have lost its humor now, don't yer
know"
Everything that man needs to sus-
tain life, with the sole exception of
air, may now be- purchased in tin
cans. The housewife has found some
of her most difficult problems solved
by the tin can method, and a heavy
load has been lifted from her
shoulders. Strawberry jam that used
to require almost unlimited work in
gathering the berries, and torture
over a red hot range, is now to be
purchased at the grocers. There was
no labor expended in gathering straw
berries for it's foundation. A little
glucose, some fiavoring extract and
handful of timothy seed, and there
you have strawberry jam that would
deceive an expert.
Blackberry jam is made in exactly
the same way, the fiavoring and the
coloring being a little different, and
alfalfa seed being substituted for the
timothy seed. Those beautiful red
| cherries that decorate the ice cream
sodas you buy-it used to require a
vast amount of work to gather and
preserve them. All the work, and
even the cherry tree have been elimi-
mated from the equation, and now
! you can buy them in tin cans or glass
bottles, and they are made of one of
| the products of coal tar properly
mixed with coloring matter and a
fait trace of prussic acid to. give them
the cherry flavor.
Thirty years ago, you will remem-
Der If you are old enough, you used
| to put in several days after the first
frost pairing and cutting up pumpkins
to dry for the winter supply of pies.
Now you buy the pumpkin in cans
ready for use, and if the pumpkin
supply is short you merely call for
pumpkin and get sweet potatoes put
up SO beautifully that you never know
the difference
A few years ago your mother used
to boil tomatoes by the bushel to make
lew gallons of delicious catsup, and
| when the tomato crop was short you
missed one of the finest condiments
imaginable. In this Inventive age of
the tin can the stock of tomato catsup
has nothing to do with the tomato
crop. If there wasn't tomato
ripened in the republic it wouldn t
reduce the output or catsup pint
Guests drop in to lunch at an un-
expected time nowadays, and it
doesn't give the housewife a f1utter
A few years ago it would have driven
her to despair. She would have to
chase out and start the kitchen fire,
catch and kill a chicken, peel and
fry potatoes, run down cellar and
skim crock of cream, and do few
hundred other things Now she en-
tertains her guests until within ten
minutes of luncheon time, and then
she sets the table and opens a few
tin cans. There is the canned salmon,
the canned sweet potatoes that need
only to be warmed over, the canned
Saratoga chips, the canned con-
densed milk, canned veaf loaf, canned
sliced tomatoes, cake from the
bakers and can of fruit.
The tin can has made the desert
ihahitahle, and pushed the fringes OF
civilization outward with ever in
creasing rapidity. In other days the
route of the pioneers was marked by
the glistening bones of men and
beasts; now it is marked by empty
tin cans