There was a time when canning was considered an art or a secret.  I remember receiving circulars offering for sale the secrets of canning, and while in the grocery business some twelve years ago I sold thousands of packages of canning compound.  These canning compounds, after a thorough examination by our State Food Department, were found not only worthless but harmful if put in canned foods.

Remember, to can vegetables successfully, it requires no canning compound or preservative of any kind, simply fresh and thoroughly clean vegetables.

Fresh vegetables are a good, healthy food, we all know this; and besides they are cheaper than meat; therefore should be on our tables two or three times a day.  But mind you, they must be fresh, and while for some of us during the growing season it is comparatively easy to get them fresh, yet during the rest of the year, say eight to ten months, real fresh vegetables in bulk are hard to find and high in price.  A lot of so-called fresh vegetables shipped in from a distance at best require several days to make the rounds through the grower, the shipper, the jobber, the retailer—­to our tables and are really not fresh.  They have become stale, and by coming in contact with different kinds of material have lost their delicate flavor.  Therefore to insure real fresh vegetables for our tables, at least during the winter months, we must take the canned article.

All of us remember how most everything in the grocery line was handled in bulk, dried fruits, cereals of all kinds, coffee, tea, etc., was displayed on the counters, along the aisles and even outside along the sidewalk, handled and examined by any one and exposed to dust and flies.  Just about the same way are vegetables in bulk handled today.  Where is the grocer who would go back to those days, and where is the public that would patronize him?

Mrs. Glenzke:  What vegetables do you can?

Mr. Hegerle:  We can corn; beans, string and wax; apples, tomatoes, etc.

Mrs. Glenzke:  How do you manage to get the farmers to bring them in?  In Wisconsin it was a failure.  As you say, they came when they got their work done, and the whole bunch came there at one time.

Mr. Hegerle:  That is the hardest work, to get the growers to bring the vegetables when they are in the right condition and when they should be canned.

Mrs. Glenzke:  There are five canning factories in that neighborhood now, and there isn’t a one of them that allows the farmers to bring their stuff.  They rent the farmers’ land for themselves.  For miles and miles you can’t find a farmer that hasn’t rented his farm.

Mr. Hegerle:  You have to have the vegetables at the right time.

Mrs. Glenzke:  They use the farmer’s team and give him all the assistance they can.  It does away with having them all at one time.  I have seen twenty-five farmers come at one time.  I don’t see how you manage it.