Careful selection, packing and shipping cannot be too strongly urged. Upon the intelligence and care with which this is done, depends, largely, the success of the shipper. Remember that after leaving your hands, and before reaching the consumer, these perishable goods are subjected to their greatest ordeal, and too much care cannot be given to make this test as light as possible. A proper understanding of this by the shipper would save many a disappointment, and many a hard word for the consignee. Of course, all else being equal, it is much safer and more satisfactory to sell on the track. However, this is not always possible, nor is it always advisable when possible. It would be unjust to demand or to expect the buyer to pay you the net price of the big city market for your goods at your home town.
In buying from you there, he takes the risk of transportation, of the fluctuations of the market, and pays all selling charges, and it is but just and right that he should be allowed a fair margin for these risks. On the other hand, human nature is the same the world over, and unless you watch Mr. Buyer closely, you will find he shows a decided tendency to make this margin unnecessarily large. To sell on track, intelligently and advantageously, therefore, you must make a close study of the market conditions. It is not enough to know what stuff sold for last week. You should know what it sold for the day before, and what the conditions of supply and demand are. Is the crop a large one? Is the movement to your market large or light? Is the demand brisk or dull? Is your railroad service efficient? All these questions should be considered, and unless the farmer recognizes that the disposal of his crop is a business, and adopts business methods, he is sure to come to grief. In order to do this, it is necessary to have some reliable source of information. For this purpose, select some reliable commission house, and if necessary, pay them to furnish you daily market reports by wire during the shipping season. Do not begrudge the little money these telegrams will cost, for they will frequently save you many a dollar, even on one carload.—(La. St. U. & A. & M. Col. 81.)
CANNING VEGETABLES IN THE HOME.
One of the many problems that confront the American housewife is the supply of vegetables for her table during the winter months. "What can I have for dinner today?" is a question often heard. Since the advent of the modern greenhouse and the forcing of vegetables under glass, fresh vegetables can usually be found at any time in the markets of the large cities. But the cost of forcing vegetables or growing them out of season is and will continue to be very great. This makes the price so high as almost to prohibit their use by people of moderate means, except as a luxury. A healthful diet, however, must include vegetables, and therefore the housewife turns to canned goods as the only alternative. These are sometimes poor substitutes for the fresh article, especially the cheaper commercial grades, which necessarily lack the delicate flavor of the fresh vegetable. There is practically no danger, however, from contamination with tin or other metals providing the containers are made of proper materials and handled carefully. In some cases the proper care is not taken in packing vegetables for market. The decayed and refuse portions are not so carefully removed as they should be and the requisite degree of cleanliness is not observed in their packing. Happily, however, such carelessness is not general.
Every housewife may run a miniature canning factory in her own kitchen, and on the farm this is especially economical and desirable, the economy being less pronounced in the case of city dwellers, who must buy their fruits and vegetables. Enough vegetables annually go to waste from the average farm garden to supply the table during the entire winter. But usually the farmer's wife cans her tomatoes, preserves her fruits, and leaves her most wholesome and nutritious vegetables to decay in the field, under the impression that it is impossible to keep them. This is a great mistake. It is just as easy to keep corn or string beans as it is to keep tomatoes, if you know how.
Sterilization.—The great secret of canning or preserving lies in complete sterilization. The air we breathe, the water we drink, all fruits and vegetables, are teeming with minute forms of life which we call bacteria, or molds, or germs. These germs are practically the sole cause of decomposition or rotting. The exclusion of air from canned articles, which was formerly supposed to be so important, is unnecessary provided the air is sterile or free from germs. The exclusion of air is necessary only because in excluding it we exclude the germ. In other words, air which has been sterilized or freed from germs by heat or mechanical means can be passed continuously over canned articles without affecting them in the least. If a glass bottle is filled with some vegetable which ordinarily spoils very rapidly—for instance, string beans—and, instead of a cork, it is stoppered with a thick plug of raw cotton and heated until all germ life is destroyed, the beans will keep indefinitely. The air can readily pass in and out of the bottle through the plug of cotton, while the germs from the outside air cannot pass through, but are caught and held in its meshes. This shows that the germs and their spores or seeds are the only causes of spoilage that we have to deal with in canning.
Germs which cause decay may be divided into three classes—yeasts, molds and bacteria. All three of these are themselves plants of a very low order, and all attack other plants of a higher order in somewhat the same way. Every housewife is familiar with the yeast plant and its habits. It thrives in substances containing sugar, which it decomposes or breaks up into carbonic acid and alcohol. This fact is made use of in bread making, as well as in the manufacture of distilled spirits. Yeasts are easily killed, so they can be left out of consideration in canning vegetables. Molds, like yeasts, thrive in mixtures containing sugar, as well as in acid vegetables, such as the tomato, where neither yeasts nor bacteria readily grow. Although more resistant to heat than yeasts, they are usually killed at the temperature of boiling water. As a general rule, molds are likely to attack jellies and preserves and are not concerned with the spoiling of canned vegetables. The spoiling of vegetables is due primarily to bacteria.
The reproduction of bacteria is brought about by one of two processes. The germ either divides itself into two parts, making two bacteria where one existed before, or else reproduces itself by means of spores. These spores may be compared with seeds of an ordinary plant, and they present the chief difficulty in canning vegetables. While the parent bacteria may be readily killed at the temperature of boiling water, the seeds retain their vitality for a long time even at that temperature, and upon cooling will germinate, and the newly formed bacteria will begin their destructive work. Therefore it is necessary, in order to completely sterilize a vegetable, to heat it to the boiling point of water and keep it at that temperature for about one hour, upon two or three successive days, or else keep it at the temperature of boiling water for a long period of time—about five hours. The process of boiling upon successive days is the one that is always employed in scientific work and is much to be preferred. The boiling on the first day kills all the molds and practically all of the bacteria, but does not kill the spores or seeds.
As soon as the jar cools these seeds germinate and a fresh crop of bacteria begin work upon the vegetables. The boiling upon the second day kills this crop of bacteria before they have had time to develop spores. The boiling upon the third day is not always necessary, but is advisable in order to be sure that the sterilization is complete. Among scientists this is called fractional sterilization, and this principle constitutes the whole secret of canning. If the housewife will only bear this in mind she will be able with a little ingenuity to can any meat, fruit, or vegetable.
Exclusion of the Air.—Even after sterilization is complete the work is not yet done. The spores of bacteria are so light that they float about in the air and settle upon almost everything. The air is alive with them. A bubble of air no larger than a pea may contain hundreds of them. Therefore it is necessary after sterilizing a jar of vegetables to exclude carefully all outside air. If one bacterium or one of its spores should get in and find a resting place, in the course of a few days the contents of the jar would spoil. This is why the exclusion of air is an important factor, not because the air itself does any damage but because of the ever-present bacteria.