Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1917-07-01
VEGETABLE CROP OF
THIS COUNTRY HAS
ENORMOUS VALUE

| The gigantic possibilities VI INC AOAAN
canning industry in the United States
| this summer. when it is so eagerly
Hoped that the production of the vege-
table gardens everywhere will be vast
| lv increased over the normal output,
are set forth in bulletin issued by
the National Geographic society from
! its Washington headquarters. The bull
| letin is a part of a communication to
the society from William Joseph Sho-
walter
"One fourth of our country's diet
consists of egetables-products OF
the truck garden, and yet, next to
Australians. Americans are the
worlds greatest meat-eaters. Our
census returns show that we produce
exclusive of potatoes and sweet pota-
toes, vegetables to a value of $2l6,-
100000.
THE tomato takes first rank, with a
S14.000. 900 production to its credlt'
the onion contributes exactly one
| half as much to the total as the toma-
t. while corn makes a successful bid
for third place; water-melons get
fourth place, with a production valued
at $4,000 900. and cantaloups add "a
600 600 more to the total. Green beans
ond oraen meas are S3.000,000 crops.
These figures deal almost entirely
with the production that gets to the
c;+v mark ct and not with the vegetables
raj sed for consumption on the farm
"There is probably no farmhouse IN
al, the land so poor as to be without
ifs vegetable garden and its truck patch
and between the dried beans, corn
meas. etc. ard the canned cucumbers'
heets. tomatoes ketchup and what not
the thrifty rural housewife takes her
family into the winter with the assur-
anca that there will be no dearth OF
vegetables.
1.-THE food administration OF the gov
eminent is now pleading with the Wo-
linen everywhere to increase their out
nut of canned goods so that the
amount of vegetables which ordinarily
goes to waste may, this year as never
before. be decreased to a positively
irreducible minimum.
If the products of the yegetabl gard
en- figure extensively in the worlds
diet they play no greater role than
the products of the orchard, the vine
ward and the berry patch. The total
Weld of these, according to the last
census. is worth 1922. 1000 600 year.
Orchard fruits are produced in
America to an annual value of Sl40,-
GOO. 900. We produce bushel and a
half of apples per capita, third OF a
bushel of peaches, two quarts and a
half of strawberries and other things
in proportion. Grape vines and cit
rcus trees yield $22, 100000 worth fo
fruit a year, while our berry crop is
valued at $29O0O,O00.
while most of our fruits and Vege-
tables come to us in their natural
state or canned, the country annually
produces millions of dollars worth Of
dried fruits-a production which hg-
ures more Iarsely in other parts OF
the world than in our own.
1T is only little more than a CEN
fury since the fruit jar came into use.
Before that the only way of keeping
the fruits and vegetables that are now
canned was to dry them or put them
away in sugar or salt. The invention
o the modern process of canning IS
credited to Nicholas Appert, French
man. His method was to put the food
to be preserved in glass jars, set them
in boiling water, and when the con-
tents we're thoroughly heated, seal the
jar.
Although Napoleon gave Appert
twelve TnOQSduu IIdLCS lOl HlS WI IA
he simply had built on foundations
we'll laid by Spallanzi nearly half a
century before. The apparatus used
by Appert in his canning processes
was very crude, but his discoveries
laid the foundation for one of the most
important industries OF modern tilpes,
one which has proved boon 10 tke
urban population of the earth, and
one which in the present emergencE ~
being depended upon, to . large eX-
tent, to prevent the world from stary
ing.
while Napoleon Bonapar paid fof
the discovery of the cannii process,
England was quick to take up thT disr
covery and to utilize it for her own
purposes. About 1915 Ezra Danger
brought to the United States a pro-
cess for canning salmon, Holsters land
oysters. This process was gradually