This may seem to some packers like a long time. All one has to do to convince himself that it is not too long is to take one of those thermometers which are made especially for determining temperatures at the center of the bottle, and put it in a bottle of catsup while it is being processed, watch the mercury rise, and note the time it takes to bring the center of the bottle to the temperature of the water surrounding it. You will find that if the water surrounding a pint bottle is 200 degrees, and the temperature at the center of the bottle is 160 degrees, it will take just about an hour to bring the catsup at the center of the bottle up to 200 degrees. As to the proper temperature, I do not see why as high a temperature as is possible without breaking the bottles should not be used. Why some packers process at 170 degrees or 180 degrees I do not know. They certainly have not carefully investigated the effect of their processing. The temperature I prefer is six degrees below boiling. At sea level this would be 206 degrees. This temperature will not break the bottles, but the steam pipes entering the tank should be so arranged and perforated that there will be as even a distribution of steam as possible. If these pipes are not properly arranged, there is apt to be as much as 6 degrees variation in the temperature at different parts of the tank. Several years ago I made a large number of tests to determine the number of micro-organisms that remained alive in bottled catsup after processing at 206 degrees F., as compared with the number which remained alive in catsup bottled from the same batch and processed at 200 degrees F. for the same length of time. The difference was surprising. I expected some difference, but not nearly as great as was shown by the tests. That which was processed at 200 degrees for an hour contained quite a few living molds, yeasts, and bacteria per cubic centimeter. This was shown by plating out samples bacteriologically on culture media—the media used being dextrose agar and wart agar. The catsup from the same batch processed one hour at 206 degrees contained scarcely any living micro-organisms at all per cubic centimeter. This test was repeated a number of times with the same result each time. These micro-organisms may have been in the form of spores in the catsup, but developed into the vegetative forms of molds, yeasts, and bacteria when placed in the culture media. Temperature Controlling and Recording Devices