If you have only a small quantity of berries or fruit to can use a deep saucepan with a tight-fitting cover and a few slats of wood.  This rack is absolutely necessary to keep the contents of the jars from becoming overheated.  Even if they should not break there is a tendency for part of the contents to escape under the cover and be lost.  Do not use hay, old clothes, newspapers or excelsior for a false bottom; they are unsatisfactory because they do not allow proper circulation of water.

Individual jar holders are very convenient and are preferred by many women to the racks.  Inexpensive racks with handles are on the market and are worth what they cost in saved nerves and unburned fingers.  Some hold eight jars, others hold twelve.  So it just lies with you, individual housekeeper, whether you want a rack that will hold all your jars or a set of individual holders that handles them separately.

To return to the subject of the canner, let me add that no matter what kind you use, it must be at least three inches deeper than the tallest jar.  This will give room for the rack and an extra inch or two so that the water will not boil over.

Besides the canners, the jars, the rubber rings and the rack you will need one kettle for boiling water, into which the product may be put for scalding or blanching; another kettle for water—­if you haven’t running water—­for the “cold dip.”

If you use a homemade rack without handles you should have a jar lifter of some kind for placing in and removing jars from the canner.  If individual holders are used this is not necessary, as they contain an upright bail.  Some women use a wire potato masher for lifting the jars out of the canners.  Other kitchen equipment, such as scales, knives, spoons, wire basket or a piece of cheesecloth or muslin for blanching or scalding the product, and the kitchen clock play their part in canning.

No canning powder or any preservative is needed.  If the product is cooked in closed jars in the hot-water bath as directed the food will be sterilized so that it will keep indefinitely.  If it is desired to add salt, sugar, sirup, vinegar or other flavor this may be done when the product is packed in the jar.

A great many people have been led to believe through advertising matter that it is both safe and practical to use canning compounds for the preserving of vegetables which have proved hard to keep under the commonly known methods of canning.  The first argument against the use of a canning compound is that it is unnecessary.  It is possible to sterilize any fruit or vegetable which grows on tree, vine, shrub or in the ground by this cold-pack, single-period method of canning, without the use of a compound.  The second argument against it is that many of the canning compounds are positively harmful to health.  Some of them contain as high as ninety-five per cent of boric acid.  Directors of county and state fairs should exclude from entry all fruits and vegetables that have been preserved in any canning compound.  Perfect fruit can be produced without any chemical preservative.  The third argument is that they are expensive.