Commercial canning is a specialist's business into which we cannot go.
The processes, essentially, are the same as those used in domestic
canning and consist in destroying all bacteria by heat and then
hermetically sealing the product in cans. In canning factories the
work is nearly all done by machinery, including peeling, pitting
and cutting the fruit, soldering the cans and putting on labels.
To purchase proper machinery, hire labor and manage both to secure
uniformity and cheapness in the product requires large capital and
keen business ability. Peaches are easy to handle in factories and
the work can be done so cheaply and the product is so acceptable that
the factory-canned fruit is rapidly taking the place of that which a
quarter of a century ago was almost wholly put up in the kitchen. The
canning industry originated, has been perfected and is now chiefly
carried on in the United States and Canada, though rapidly being
introduced elsewhere. The aid afforded the peach-grower in this country
by the canneries has been a great stimulus and makes the possibilities
of profitable production of this fruit in the future certain.
Orchard-canning on a small scale seldom proves feasible, succeeding
best, if at all, in a home industry to provide a special product for a
fancy or private trade. Occasionally, associations can command capital
enough to compete with the large business enterprises but as a rule
the peach-grower's interests are served best by the production of
acceptable fruit for those who are engaged in the canning industry.
In the East, New York for example, all surplus peaches of standard
varieties go to the cannery, though certain sorts have preference, but
on the Pacific Coast where peaches are grown for canning, the trade
demands a special type. The choice of varieties differs in different
localities so that a prescription of sorts to grow for the canning
trade cannot be made. Canners accept only yellow-fleshed peaches and
usually prefer clingstones since these stand up better in the can. This
preference is well shown in figures from California, where in 1913
only 583,800 cases, 24 cans to the case, of freestones were canned as
against 1,630,255 cases of clingstones. Fashion now demands varieties
red at the pit. Most cans in the great pack coming from California are
labeled "Lemon Cling," but this is really now but a trade name, the old
Lemon Cling, the pioneer sort in the canning trade, being little grown,
a dozen or more similar but improved peaches having taken its place.
The nectarine is canned in California but is not yet popular with
consumers despite the fact that the product is most appetizing and very
pleasing in appearance. Its smooth skin makes it one of the easiest of
all fruits to can.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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