“Well, do please spare just one hour for the purpose now,” was my appeal; and getting ready a notebook, I explained that my shorthand would probably be a match for his conversational speed. “To start at the beginning, then,” said Mr. Barker, courteously falling in with this scheme for imparting reliable information to the reading public, “you must know that the pioneer was William Hume, who came from the State of Maine, where his father, a Scotsman, was a fisherman on the Kennebec River. In the early ’sixties William Hume, probably as a result of the gold excitement, migrated to California, where he located on the Sacramento River, and engaged in hunting and fishing. “An interesting memory of those days has to do with an extraordinary gun that had been specially made for him. It was of unusually large bore, and it took a very heavy charge of powder—altogether an extremely effective weapon against ducks and geese, of which Hume and his partner shot a great many. But one slight drawback to this gun was that it ‘kicked’ pretty badly, and its owner was always very careful before firing it to protect himself with a thick shoulder-pad. Well, one day Hume went off with a wagon-load of birds for the market, leaving his partner in the shack laid up with rheumatism. It seems that the invalid came limping out into the air, and happened to see a flock of geese. Without a second thought, he took up Hume’s gun, quite forgetting about the shoulder-pad and equally forgetting his own infirm condition. He fired. How many geese he killed I don’t know, but he himself was knocked sprawling, and on picking himself up he made the delightful discovery that the rheumatism had completely left him! I have seen that gun in a museum. It certainly looks formidable enough to ‘kick’ an unwary marksman off his feet. As to the rest of the story, I merely repeat what I heard. “William Hume caught more salmon than he could dispose of—which unsatisfactory state of affairs he discussed with a man he had known in Maine. This was Mr. Hapgood; and the upshot of their deliberations was that they jointly set to work, with make-shift arrangements, to pack salmon in tins on a scow on the Sacramento River. Such was the beginning of the canning industry that has since assumed such gigantic proportions.