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The Canning of Peas: Based on Factory Inspection and Experimental Data
Title
The Canning of Peas: Based on Factory Inspection and Experimental Data
Subject
commercial canning
Excerpt
HISTORICAL NOTE.
According to the early accounts of the art of canning, peas were among the first vegetables to be preserved in this manner, and later they were among the first to enter the canned-goods trade. Pea canning may be said, therefore, to be as old as the canning industry. At first the process was used only to preserve such choice fruits and vegetables as were most difficult to keep in the fresh state, as the cost of glass bottles and earthenware jars prevented their use for cheaper products. After the invention of the tin can, as the cost was lessened, peas became one of the most important articles packed. The pea-canning industry began in this country in Baltimore during the Fifties. There was an immediate demand for the product, and consequently some packing was done at nearly every factory. The peas were grown garden fashion and picked and podded by hand: but the labor required was so great that the output was small and the price high. The methods used did not differ in an} 7 essential detail from those followed in preparing fresh peas in the kitchen. The demand continued to increase, but the total output of all the early factories would not equal that of one small modern plant.
The first labor-saving device of importance in pea canning was the podding machine invented by Madame Faure in France in 1883. This machine was described in La Nature, Paris. April, 1885 and a translation, with illustrations, appeared in the Scientific American June G, 1885. The invention was practically duplicated in this country in 1889. By means of the podding machine one person could do the work of a hundred or more in removing the peas from ilif pods, thus making possible the canning of much greater quantities. The American podding machine was improved, and in 1893 it was patented as a vining machine. After this invention it was no longer necessary to pick the pods from the vines in the field: the plants could be mowed, hauled in by wagon, and the peas separated from the pod and vine at one operation. The whole pea-canning industry was changed by this invention. Practically all of the peas canned in this country are passed through these vining machines, so that their use has virtually changed the growing of peas in small patches — market-garden fashion, with hundreds of persons going over the vines and picking the pods — to the cultivating of large fields which are cut by a machine. The viner occupies the same relation to hand picking i n the pea-canning industry that the thrashing machine does to the flail in the thrashing of wheat.
According to the early accounts of the art of canning, peas were among the first vegetables to be preserved in this manner, and later they were among the first to enter the canned-goods trade. Pea canning may be said, therefore, to be as old as the canning industry. At first the process was used only to preserve such choice fruits and vegetables as were most difficult to keep in the fresh state, as the cost of glass bottles and earthenware jars prevented their use for cheaper products. After the invention of the tin can, as the cost was lessened, peas became one of the most important articles packed. The pea-canning industry began in this country in Baltimore during the Fifties. There was an immediate demand for the product, and consequently some packing was done at nearly every factory. The peas were grown garden fashion and picked and podded by hand: but the labor required was so great that the output was small and the price high. The methods used did not differ in an} 7 essential detail from those followed in preparing fresh peas in the kitchen. The demand continued to increase, but the total output of all the early factories would not equal that of one small modern plant.
The first labor-saving device of importance in pea canning was the podding machine invented by Madame Faure in France in 1883. This machine was described in La Nature, Paris. April, 1885 and a translation, with illustrations, appeared in the Scientific American June G, 1885. The invention was practically duplicated in this country in 1889. By means of the podding machine one person could do the work of a hundred or more in removing the peas from ilif pods, thus making possible the canning of much greater quantities. The American podding machine was improved, and in 1893 it was patented as a vining machine. After this invention it was no longer necessary to pick the pods from the vines in the field: the plants could be mowed, hauled in by wagon, and the peas separated from the pod and vine at one operation. The whole pea-canning industry was changed by this invention. Practically all of the peas canned in this country are passed through these vining machines, so that their use has virtually changed the growing of peas in small patches — market-garden fashion, with hundreds of persons going over the vines and picking the pods — to the cultivating of large fields which are cut by a machine. The viner occupies the same relation to hand picking i n the pea-canning industry that the thrashing machine does to the flail in the thrashing of wheat.
Creator
Bitting, A.W.
Date
1909
Relation
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Chemistry Bulletin Number 125
File(s)
The Canning of Peas Cover.jpg
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The Canning of Peas TOC.jpg
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Squirrel Cages.jpg
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Salt Solution.jpg
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Separation with Salt Solution.jpg
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