Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1917-10-11
A TRIP THRU THE AUDUBON
CANNING FACTORY

Ninety cans of pumpkin being fill
ed and sealed a minute, for sixty min
utes an hour, and for ten hours a
day. gives an idea of the capacity of
the canning factory of which w. II.
Smith is manager. The cans are
shipped to the factory by the car load
They are placed on their side and
TERED to the top of the car. A man
with an unloading gaff-an instru-
ment that is made of two pieces of
| wood, the handle and cross bar.
In the cross bar are set small pins
or spikes, about two and one half
inches apart, so that they may be in
serted in the open end of the cans
and raised from the tier. The cross
bar is just half the width of the car
so with two operations, a single row
of cans is removed from their place
and landed in the conveyor
The conveyor in which they are
| first placed is of the gravity type;
that is the cans roll down its length
into the building and then into an ele
vator which raises them to the top of
the building and placed in a second
gravity conveyor. This carries them
to the opposite end of the building
where they are again raised to the
ceiling and placed in the third gravi-
ty conveyor. This conveyor carries
them from the ware house into the
factory to the filling machine.
The pumpkin are hauled to the
factory by the farmers and placed in
the store room, close to the factory.
From thios store room they are rolled
down a chute into the washing tank
in the factory. They are thoroly
scrubbed and washed to remove all
dirt and filth. The water in the tank
is running continually so that it is
always clean.
After the pumpkins are washed
they are put upon table whore they
are quartered or cut up and then
placed in a wire bound case. These
cases are hoisted and placed in a re-
tort which is heritically sealed and
tort which is Theoretically sealed and
degrees, thirty eight degrees hotter
than boiling water. The pumpkin is
cooked in the retort for % or 80 min
utes according to the ripeness.
The retorts are then opened and
the cases are hoisted and delivered
to the machine called Cyclone Pull
per. The pumpkin is sailed and then
dumped into this machine where it is
separated from the seeds and peeling.
This machine has a fine gauge wire
screen in the base, in the form of
half circle. Paddles turning around
and round force the pumpkin thru
this screen into a recepticle below
which runs it into a spiral elevator.
The refuse consisting of seeds and
peeling is cast out thru another open
ing into a receiving pan. The pull
per is completely inclosed so that no
dirt of any kind can get into it. The
action of the screen in the base of
the pulper is similar to the old-fash
Toned cullendar, with the exception
that the holes are many times small
er.
The spiral conveyor or elevator ele-
Yates the pure pumpkin from the pull
per to the filling machine. This ma
chine is covered and heats the con-
tents by steam to temperature of
165 to $50 degrees. This machine
automatically takes the cans from
the gravity conveyor, passes them un-
der the filling spouts which automa-
tically fills them with a measured
amount of cooked pumpkin at the
rate of ninety a minute. These cans
after being filled are thrownout upon