The Growing of Vegetables for Canning.
M. H. HEGERLE, PRES. CANNING FACTORY, ST. BONIFACIUS.
The state authorities, through the Agricultural Farm and other sources, are doing good work promoting and encouraging the growing of vegetables, but it seems more could be done towards the marketing and conservation of these vegetables after they are grown.
The growing season for vegetables in this state is comparatively short, and although during that short period everybody eats vegetables, every grocer"s show windows, and even the sidewalks, are used to display them, and a tremendous business is done, yet there are tons and tons of nice fresh vegetables go to waste, not only for the market or truck farmer but in every family garden--be the same ever so small, there is a steady waste going on, all of which could easily be conserved _by canning_.
Canning is simply putting the fresh vegetables in tin cans or gla.s.s jars (the latter are much more expensive, but no better), steaming and sealing them and setting aside until wanted. By doing this every truck farmer, and any one having ever so small a garden, could conserve enough which otherwise would go to waste to keep them in real fresh vegetables all winter.
Of course the thousands living in the cities having no garden can not do this and are therefore dependent on the canning factory for their fresh vegetables, and here is where my topic comes in, _the growing of vegetables for canning_.
It is no trick to grow vegetables for home canning, any variety will do.
You need not select a big lot of one kind, and you need not sort for size or color. Just take the surplus as you find it in your garden from day to day. All it needs is, it must be fresh and it must be thoroughly clean--but growing for the canning factory is different. To line up fifty to 200 growers to sow the same seed, to plant, harvest and bring to the factory just when in right condition, requires time and hard work. This really is the hardest problem the canning factory has to solve, and that is the reason why all successful canners grow at least part of their product.
You must remember vegetables put in cans will come out just as you put them in. If you put in stale, tough, stringy beans you will be sure to find them there when you open the can, but if you put in fresh, tender beans, peas, corn or whatever else, you will find these exactly as you put them in, and it"s immaterial whether you open this can the first, second or tenth year. We must not forget that vegetables properly sterilized and sealed will keep indefinitely, and they require no preservative of any kind. No canning factory uses any preservative, and no home cannery should use them.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Upland Farm, St. Bonifacius, Minn.]
There was a time when canning was considered an art or a secret. I remember receiving circulars offering for sale the secrets of canning, and while in the grocery business some twelve years ago I sold thousands of packages of canning compound. These canning compounds, after a thorough examination by our State Food Department, were found not only worthless but harmful if put in canned foods.
_Remember_, to can vegetables successfully, it requires no canning compound or preservative of any kind, simply fresh and thoroughly clean vegetables.
Fresh vegetables are a good, healthy food, we all know this; and besides they are cheaper than meat; therefore should be on our tables two or three times a day. But mind you, they must be fresh, and while for some of us during the growing season it is comparatively easy to get them fresh, yet during the rest of the year, say eight to ten months, real fresh vegetables in bulk are hard to find and high in price. A lot of so-called fresh vegetables shipped in from a distance at best require several days to make the rounds through the grower, the shipper, the jobber, the retailer--to our tables and are really not fresh. They have become stale, and by coming in contact with different kinds of material have lost their delicate flavor. Therefore to insure real fresh vegetables for our tables, at least during the winter months, we must take the canned article.
All of us remember how most everything in the grocery line was handled in bulk, dried fruits, cereals of all kinds, coffee, tea, etc., was displayed on the counters, along the aisles and even outside along the sidewalk, handled and examined by any one and exposed to dust and flies.
Just about the same way are vegetables in bulk handled today. Where is the grocer who would go back to those days, and where is the public that would patronize him?
Mrs. Glenzke: What vegetables do you can?
Mr. Hegerle: We can corn; beans, string and wax; apples, tomatoes, etc.
Mrs. Glenzke: How do you manage to get the farmers to bring them in? In Wisconsin it was a failure. As you say, they came when they got their work done, and the whole bunch came there at one time.
Mr. Hegerle: That is the hardest work, to get the growers to bring the vegetables when they are in the right condition and when they should be canned.
Mrs. Glenzke: There are five canning factories in that neighborhood now, and there isn"t a one of them that allows the farmers to bring their stuff. They rent the farmers" land for themselves. For miles and miles you can"t find a farmer that hasn"t rented his farm.
Mr. Hegerle: You have to have the vegetables at the right time.
Mrs. Glenzke: They use the farmer"s team and give him all the a.s.sistance they can. It does away with having them all at one time. I have seen twenty-five farmers come at one time. I don"t see how you manage it.
Mr. Hegerle: We have had a lot of trouble, and we are growing some of our vegetables.
Mrs. Glenzke: You can raise four successive crops of peas on the same ground, and you can make that work all right. They used to can squash, corn, tomatoes, and they have got down to peas entirely.
A Member: Doesn"t most of that trouble arise from the low prices?
Mr. Hegerle: No, not entirely. The price when contracted is satisfactory, and we find in our experience in growing our own vegetables we can grow them cheaper than what we pay to the growers. But we wouldn"t grow any if we could get the growers to bring them in when they are in the right shape. When corn is at a certain stage to make a good canned article it has got to be brought in that day, and if the farmer don"t bring it, if he has a state fair on or a wedding or a funeral or something and delays it a day or two, then it is all off; that corn is lost.
Mr. Sauter: I would like to know which is the best beans for canning, the yellow or the green?
Mr. Hegerle: Well, we prefer the Refugee, both in wax and green. We prefer them because they are the best in flavor we have.
Mr. Sauter: Which is the best, the flat or the round of the wax?
Mr. Hegerle: Round is preferred by the trade, by the grocers or jobbers.
I have kept the flat wax beans for my own use of those that we can.
Mr. Sauter: Don"t the flat ones bring a little more than the round ones?
Mr. Hegerle: Well, probably the first or second picking, but you can"t pick them as often as the other variety. The Refugee you can pick four or five or six times, and the flat beans can only be picked two times.
Mr. Anderson: I would like to ask what you pay for beans for canning purposes?
Mr. Hegerle: We pay from 3/4 of a cent up to 4 cents a pound. Sometimes a man brings in some that are almost too good to throw away, they are big and stringy, and rather than send them home we think we have got to take them and pay him something for them. We would rather not have them, and we usually dump them. Starting from that we pay up to three and four cents. Four cents for well sorted and mostly small beans. They have got to be graded, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Number 1 is the smallest, and they bring the best price. We pay in proportion to the number 1"s and 2"s in the load.
Mr. Sauter: What tomato do you find the best for canning?
Mr. Hegerle: Well, the Earliana.
Mr. Sauter: Do you have any trouble with those bursting the cans?
Mr. Hegerle: No, sir.
Mr. Sauter: We had that trouble in canning for our own use. They burst the can, they expanded.
Mr. Hegerle: That is the fault of the man, not of the tomato.
Mr. Sauter: They were picked and canned the same day.
Mr. Hegerle: Probably not sterilized enough. Sterilizing fruit is the main thing. A tomato is really one of the easiest things to can.
Mr. Sauter: In other tomatoes we don"t have that trouble. It seems to hurt the sale of them to the women folks.
Mr. Hegerle: Sterilize them a little more.
Mr. Sauter: About how long would you cook them?
Mr. Hegerle: I am not the man at the wheel on that part. I don"t know.
We have a superintendent that handles that part of it.
Top-Grafting.