Untitled Document

CANNERY.

Geneseo has the only cannery in Henry county. It is one of a great series of canneries owned and operated by Numsen & Sons, the millionaire vegetable- packers of Baltimore, Md. E. B. Dawes is the resident manager, and a most efficient and thorough man of business he has proven himself to be.

The cannery at first concentrated its energies upon corn. After a year or two, peas were added. By the addition of peas, which come in June, the activities of the concern are prolonged, and working people have an extended season in which to earn goodly sums of cash. There is a resting-spell between the last run of peas and the first run of corn.

The cannery is the center of a busy scene when the peas and corn are coming in from the farms. The street fronting the works is crowded with teams. In the corn season, the vast husking-sheds are alive with jolly huskers, who appear to regard their job as a joke. How the husks fly! Sweet corn, however, has no red ears. The bonny boys and merry maidens might not forget ancient traditions should a red ear be found. This season, 1909, the firm installed a dozen or more patent huskers; but the machines failed to make good, and all the crop was husked in the good old-fashioned way.

The cannery is a grand good innovation. It affords a reliable means for replenishing the purses of the people, who aid in the season's pack, and is a beneficent feature of local farming. It furnishes the farmer an opportunity for diversified crops, which is a great aid to sustained fertility. Scientific farmers, practical farmers, all agree that rotation of crops, makes a fertile farm. It is for the farm as good grooming is for a horse. Besides, a good crop of fodder may be raised on pea-ground, after the peas are harvested in early June. Here is double profit from the field. All farmers who recognize a good thing, all progressive agriculturists, should combine in their support of the cannery, by arranging for ample acreage for peas and sweet corn each season.

The product of the cannery, footing up to millions of cans, is absorbed in the ever-increasing demand for these goods. I understand that the South, particularly Texas, consumes most of the output of the Geneseo cannery.

Old settlers, the prairie brand of old settlers, knew nothing of canneries or canned foods. I had a curious conversation once with Theodore Tilton, the great and eccentric writer. He lectured in Geneseo on May i. 1876. He had a gloomy fancy for prowling in cemeteries. While we wandered in Oakwood, he suddenly asked:

"Do you know how I came to write Tempest-Tost ?"

I didn't know what inspired that romance of the sea, and said so.

"Canned goods on our grocer's shelves," grinned Tilton. "Men had just discovered that by excluding the air, all kinds of food could be kept indefinitely. I immediately conceived the idea of a ship loaded with canned goods, losing her compass and rudder in a storm, and tost for years on the pathless brine. With

a cargo of canned food, the people on board could live. The story was indeed novel and a real success."

So is the Geneseo cannery, under Dawes' management, "a real success."

Cannery Opening Day, in August, 1904, was a Red Letter Day in the annals of Geneseo. The people celebrated from dawn till dark, bands played, processions moved, the streets were aflame with flags, speeches were made, and a song, written especially for the occasion by Henry L. Kiner, was sung at the main entrance of the cannery by the Geneseo Male Quartette. The refrain of the song was "Corn is King, Sweet Corn is Queen," and created great enthusiasm.

For the first seasons the cannery depended upon the city water system for the immense quantity of water required in cooking and steaming, and for the boilers that run the machinery. A couple of seasons back the Numsens installed a system of huge wells and tanks, from which they obtain a copious supply.

In the language of the great Rip Van Winkle, may the cannery "Live long, and prosper."

They can what they can; and what they can't can they cancel.

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