Both filled cans and empty cans should be handled almost like eggs. One large pulp packing concern is particularly cautious about this, and it is certainly soothing to the nerves to see their employees handling 5–gal. cans after witnessing the rough and tumble methods in the average plant. They know that it pays to be particular, and that they can get three years’ use out of almost all of their 135–lb. plate cans, and not have many swells either. This concern rarely sells any of their pulp, but puts it up for their own use, to be made into bean sauce, catsup, soup, etc., during the winter months. Advantages of Separating Batches Some packers stack their pulp away without dating it; others date each day’s run; while others stack each batch separately. The latter system is practicable where the pulp is cooked in large batches of about 300 gallons or more and in working up the pulp during the winter months it is a great help. For instance, suppose part of the pulp is to be used for catsup and part for bean sauce. The packer can take batches one to fifty, for example, open one can from each batch, examine it for color and microscopical analysis and he knows exactly what he has in that stack of pulp, which may be three thousand cans. He can select the various batches to be used for the purpose to which they are best adapted, and he can be absolutely sure that each can in a batch is exactly the same in every respect. Take another example: We will say that the packer is selling his pulp. His records show that on September 20th and on October 2nd, for instance, he had a lot of bad tomatoes; shipments received on those days were unavoidably held up and he had to make the best of the situation. He knows, however, that on those same dates he had a lot of good tomatoes which came in by wagon haul and that they were run up at the same time. He has a large order for pulp from a catsup maker who is very particular about the microscopical analysis of the goods he buys. In order to play absolutely safe, the packer can take a sample from each batch of the pulp run on September 20th and October 2nd, and if a half dozen batches run too high he can omit them when he makes the shipment to this buyer. If he preserved a sample from each batch run on these dates at the time they were run, which is the better way, it makes the sorting out of this pulp a very easy matter. He thus eliminates the danger of the loss of a good buyer by sending him even a comparatively small quantity of pulp which is high in micro-organisms.