Canned tomato soup is a commodity which is increasing in favor with the housewife. The old method of preparing this soup in the home was to open a can of tomatoes, strain it through a colander, and stew it, adding butter, salt, sugar, spices, flour, and perhaps soda and milk. The modern way is to immerse a can of condensed tomato soup in boiling water for five minutes, open it, and mix the contents with an equal volume of hot water or hot milk. How much more convenient the modern way is, and when the quality is just as good and often better than can be obtained the long troublesome way, it is natural that canned tomato soup should become increasingly popular. Buying the canned soup is also cheaper than buying the canned tomatoes and making the soup from them. Factors Upon Which Success Depends The maker of tomato soup should be a crank on quality. There is no other tomato product in which quality is at a greater premium. In catsup and chili sauce, heavy spicing and mixing with lots of vinegar and sugar help to mask the tomato flavor, but in soup the spicing is light, no vinegar is used, and being eaten as a food in itself, instead of as a condiment with which to flavor a food, the palate quickly detects inferiority. Also, the palate is just as quick to detect that pleasing fresh tomato taste which should be the basis of all good soup. The quality of the tomato stock is the real important thing. Fresh tomatoes may be used or a fine grade of pulp may be used, and either will make an excellent soup. With poor tomato stock a good soup cannot be made no matter what you do to it. Spicing artistically, and making rich by the use of plenty of good butter, will not make amends for poor quality of tomato stock. To succeed in making tomato soup the manufacturer must at least make good on the following counts: first, his soup must be palatable, that is, pleasing, to the taste with no lingering unpleasant after-taste; second, it must not be too sweet or too sour; third, it must be uniform in consistency, smooth when poured out of the can, and must not get lumpy or grainy after being in storage a long time; fourth, it must not curdle fresh milk, even though the housewife adds no baking soda when mixing milk with it; fifth, it must be reasonable in price and attractively packed in popular sizes. Unpalatability