Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1917-06-29
CANNING.

| This gardening business and canning
proposition kind O. takes a Teller bacl
to old times" doesn't it? And when thu
woman who is knitting socks for sol
winds the yarn into a ball that certain
ly does recall the olden time wher
mother and grandmother used to kni
and when we held the skein and may
haps won a box on the ear by inatten'
ton that tangled the skein and cos
time to work out the tangle. Remember
how your thumbs got in the way wher
the eye wandered toward the pasture
where the boys were gathering for two
old cat They were big skeins then anG
when the bail had been wound it might
be half as big as your head. Perhaps
also you recall Coping" a proper sized
| ball Of yarn from mothers store, cover
ing it with sheepskin il you were suf-
ficiently adept or if not sewing the
| outside of it thoroughly with Irvine to
hold it together and thus acquiring
dignity and place as possessor of ball
fit for play in that same pasture. How
you assisted in the search for the miss
ing ball with guilt in your heart and
how perhaps you lied boldly in denial
Of any completely in its disappearance
or Sc OF ~
canning and suchlike.
Remember when canning first came
in? Do you happen to remember the
first tin cans You saw. those cans with
wide mouthed tops with tin covers
which were sealed with strip of
candle wicking and mixture Of rosin
Recall how they nearly always work
ed and had to be done over" There
were only a few things canned then.
Mostly things were preserved" To-
matoes grew into thick CONNECTION
in the copper "kittle." Apples went into
butter" or if the lady of the house had
been born and brought up in York
state" into cider apple sauce, which was
quartered apples boiled in boiled
down" cider and even at this late day
Of. paprika and piquant sauces fingers
in the mouth Of memory, unforgetable
and desired. We canned no corn but
dried 1t and dried corn creamed and
mr. 10
might drag an emperor from his throne
to taste. Also we dried apples and
pumpkin and small fruits like black
berries and raspberries. In those old
days the woods were full of black er-
ries, great long, luscious berries sweet
with the shade of the thickets merely
waiting for busy fingers. II was no
great JOB for family to make an out
ing and bring home a bushel of big.
ripe berries. And later along the Hi
nois Usage hedges the tame raspberry
took root and flourshed in great guam
titles TO furnish miserable boys labor
under the maternal command Then
came the glass cans and even later
the rubber bands that sealed them Sc
curely. And then everybody canned
and the cupboard in the cellar filled
its long shelves with winter supplies.
So it Is kind O like old times to be
putting in cabbages to bury and corn
to dry and figuring on how many cans
of tomatoes and corn and beans and
foods of all sorts we are to preserve in
cans and set down cellar for winter. It's
a new thing to many Of US who have
considered the freedom from labor and
care purchased cheaply enough from
the packers. So many of us in towns
have grown into a hand to mouth style
of living that would horrify our grand
mothers and would have cost us a
place in grandfather's will who hated
waste and believed a dollar was work
ing only when it brought something
that he couldn't make or grow with his
own hands. Perhaps the pressure OF
emergency will assist us to unlearn
| some things and learn some things
over
BY the way what process are you
using. cold pack, water seal or pres
sure? And honest Indian, II somebody
had mentioned any Of those processes
six months or year ago how many OF
US would have known what was meant: