Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1906-01-05
An Industry Very In
Dortant to Maine.
Canned Goods Of New England
Worth 100000 Annually.
How The Corn Gamer Is a Practical
Prokibiticnist.

| be proved, indirectly at least. liie
| microbe is in the corn. in the rye IN the
hops, in the grape. from which
| Whistles, beer and wine are made. II is
a true living organism. whose name is
| "ferment," according to eminent
chemists and exists not only IN the
| large variety of fruits and grains from
which different liquors are made, but IN
| all the fresh foods we eat. 1t is to pre-
| serve it and let it do its work best that
| distilleries, breweries and wine presses
exist: on the other hand, those in the
canning business bend all their energies
| toward it's destruction. The man VINO
| cans corn is practical prohibitionist.
There are different ways in which
the surplus corn which we don't want
| to eat in the summer time can he used
! Down in Tennessee large part of the
! corn which doesn't go into corn pone'
! goes into the blind tiger" and comes
out in liquid form to enhance the thirst
produced by an overhead sun. In
| Maine where drinking" is not looked
upon kindly the Gamer removes the
source of temptation by preserving the
cereal. innocent of the mischievous
rnicrohe 'ferment," for winter con-
|
some seven hundred thousand cases OF
canned corn. or 16,S00,000 separate tins,
which ia not bad sized prohibition
product even for a prohibition state.
From the earliest times man has been
racking his brains to discover some
method by which he could keep the
food he didn't relish for the time being
from spelling on his hands. To Kill his
enemy, Torment" the invisible animal
which causes decomposition in all food,
and to preserve his provisions at the
same time i'll palatable form has been
his object. Drying the juice out of
vegeta bles ard !2Cats has for ages been
one mctH@.l, but only III few cases has
the dried for' '.>~Glted in dishes pleas
| mig to the tag. t'-rozing is another
way Of doing it. but frozen food makes
| eating vcritable GRIND. Curing with
salt and sugar was too complicated and
EXPENSIVE a process for primitive soci-
ETY. and. besides. this method destroys
I that taste in fresh food which goes to
. the spot Of the hungry man. To shut
|, out tho air from the microbe by seal
ing the food in Il can or jar and then to
? complete his destruction by boiling him
, way to accomplish both ends.
. The canning industry is at the outside
}. not more than 10 years old. In 1875.
Nicholas Appert, a Frenchman. in
4 vented the process of inclosing fruit in
z a glass jar. scaling it up and then sub
jecting the whole to the action of boil
ing water This was to preserve it for
use on board of French men-Of-War
: The Er.pph poynrp,OaOt bouubt ~, .ha
process and established factories in
). France and England where it was car
RED on. The industry in this way
gradually spread over England. Ire
land and France. In 1918 Ezra Daggett
came over to New York from England,
-n1 II 1919. with his son-in-laW.
ThorNaS ECnSctt engaged in the manu-
: facrure Of Theoretically sealed fish and
oysters. In 1870. William Underwood
. and Charles Mitchell, English emil
, grants. launched the canning industry
in Boston. They canned damsons,
, ounces cranbcrrics and currants.
Tho growth Of the canning Industry in
, Now England was very SLOW Up to within
80 years. Glass jars which could not
Withstand the extremes of tempcra ture
md were bulky and expensive had first to
, be superseded by tin cans These latter
were for some time made by hand in I.
! crude and imperfect fashion: and after
machinery had hecn invented to make
them inexpensive and satisfactory the
oldfashoned prejudice against food in
tins Kept the last generation from buying
canned goods in any great quantity The
early method, also. of boiling the cans
1 in
slow and uncertain. The temporatlir.
could not he run up to tn" required height
for cooking some of the contents The
, use of dry steam had to be introduced and
the steam "retort" perfected.
i. After the Introduction OF these I'm :
provemcntS. however. and after the OBJ
! jeCtions to the cans had been explained
away by expert chemists. canncric; mul-
: tIplied by the dozen. All up and down the
New England coast factories for hacking
fish were established and in the interior
. the corn shop became Il familiar rural
. landmark. Today the canned goods made
every year in New England are worth
100000: New England cans more fish
than any other section of the country and
. Maine is one of the foremost states III
putting ur corn and that good old Yankee
| dish. SuCcOtaSh.
The small farmer. the corn shop and
| the railroad are hand-in- glove. The small
farmer harvests his corn and for an am
pie consideration dumps it ont under tho
IuSklllS SHeU VI the corn SHOP. y crowd
of nimhle fingered workers than pouncas
upon the green ears and with the speed
OF experts tears off the huSks. throwina;
the Sltteriug CObs into round wicker has
kets. These are then carried up in front
of the cutters. machines with circular
knives which suck the unfortunate cobs
in and shave them of their kernels The
hare cohS are elected in continuous
stream on to a huge steamng pile and tn.
kernels so into the mixer. The work of
the mixer is to sweeten the corn and pro-
vide the milk" or syrup" in which il
is packed. From the mixer the Germ is
poured through pipes into empty cans.
which start on an eventful Journey down
a miniature moving sidewalk. As they
move along, q little girl deity places Il
cap on each enc. Next a big machine OK.
tends its fingers down to solder the cans
on and then another little machine tins
with solder the little hole in the middle of
each cap.
The cans are now. ready for the steam
retortS III an adjoining room. They are
placed in cases and husky young farmers
who prefer the corn shop 10 the potato
field, heaNe them onto trucks and haul
them in to their steam bath After
steaming for a while in the retorts. great
square iron ovens with a big steam dial
in one upper corner like an eye they are
carried out onto an open platform and ser
in rows in the sunlight. Here they are
finally tested and If icI- - c,anl-,<,