Patten’s Greening, Oldenburg, Okabena and Simbrish No. 1 produced a good crop of apples.  With us Okabena is undersized, of poor flavor and an extremely poor keeper.

The Growing of Vegetables for Canning.

M. H. HEGERLE, PRES.  CANNING FACTORY, ST. BONIFACIUS.

The state authorities, through the Agricultural Farm and other sources, are doing good work promoting and encouraging the growing of vegetables, but it seems more could be done towards the marketing and conservation of these vegetables after they are grown.

The growing season for vegetables in this state is comparatively short, and although during that short period everybody eats vegetables, every grocer’s show windows, and even the sidewalks, are used to display them, and a tremendous business is done, yet there are tons and tons of nice fresh vegetables go to waste, not only for the market or truck farmer but in every family garden—­be the same ever so small, there is a steady waste going on, all of which could easily be conserved by canning.

Canning is simply putting the fresh vegetables in tin cans or glass jars (the latter are much more expensive, but no better), steaming and sealing them and setting aside until wanted.  By doing this every truck farmer, and any one having ever so small a garden, could conserve enough which otherwise would go to waste to keep them in real fresh vegetables all winter.

Of course the thousands living in the cities having no garden can not do this and are therefore dependent on the canning factory for their fresh vegetables, and here is where my topic comes in, the growing of vegetables for canning.

It is no trick to grow vegetables for home canning, any variety will do.  You need not select a big lot of one kind, and you need not sort for size or color.  Just take the surplus as you find it in your garden from day to day.  All it needs is, it must be fresh and it must be thoroughly clean—­but growing for the canning factory is different.  To line up fifty to 200 growers to sow the same seed, to plant, harvest and bring to the factory just when in right condition, requires time and hard work.  This really is the hardest problem the canning factory has to solve, and that is the reason why all successful canners grow at least part of their product.

You must remember vegetables put in cans will come out just as you put them in.  If you put in stale, tough, stringy beans you will be sure to find them there when you open the can, but if you put in fresh, tender beans, peas, corn or whatever else, you will find these exactly as you put them in, and it’s immaterial whether you open this can the first, second or tenth year.  We must not forget that vegetables properly sterilized and sealed will keep indefinitely, and they require no preservative of any kind.  No canning factory uses any preservative, and no home cannery should use them.

[Illustration:  Upland Farm, St. Bonifacius, Minn.]