Home Gardens and Canning Clubs Help You Keep Your Money at Home, 1937

“Canning at Home” by Jane S. McKimmon, Assistant Director of Extension, N.C. State College, in the November, 1937, issue of Carolina Co-operator

In 1912 it was not easy to secure a market for home-canned products because home-canned products did not bear a savory reputation in the market.

When cans were filled and reports sent to the State office the opening sentence of many a narrative was, “I joined the Canning Club to make some money for myself,” and I felt that all of the 229 girls reporting were looking to us for the sale of their products. Each girl sent a sample can of what she had canned to my office, and these appeared to be of such excellent quality that in seeking a market I asked a friend to submit samples to a large commercial house in New York.

The buyer poured the large, well-packed tomatoes from the can and pronounced them very fine, but when he opened the second can, there was one light-colored, inferior tomato amongst the good one. He said, “I buy only products that are standard throughout.”

Perhaps this criticism was the best thing that could have happened to an organization starting a new business venture.

The 14 agents were called into Raleigh for a marketing conference and we determined to sell first in our own community, our own county, and our own state. We could not expect outsiders to buy when we had not proven to our home folks that our products were worth buying.

Every agent went back to her county determined to dispose of those tomatoes and there were many ingenious selling methods introduced.

One agent loaded cans and club girls in farm wagons and buggies, decorated the vehicles in red bunting and pine, and stopped on the courthouse green where they offered their wares for sale.

Buyers crowded round and the quart cans began to move quickly at 10 cents each. When they were half gone, four merchants came with a proposition to the home agent to buy the 500 cans remaining a $1.00 per dozen. The girls conferred and decided that the merchants, as prospective buyers, would be well worth the sacrifice of 20 cents per dozen. They closed the deal and returned home to plan the output for next year.

In another county a merchant placed his sign over a beautiful exhibit of tomatoes in glass jars canned by farm girls. “We Buy From The County and The County Buys From Us,” and “What you can see in the glass jars, you will find in the tin can,” read signs.

In another store window was, “Why buy from Maryland when we can produce good canned tomatoes in this county?” and “Keep your dollars at home.”

By June, 1913, every can had been sold and gardens were planted for another crop.

It was part of the wisdom to allow only one product on the market for the first two years, and agents worked in and out of season to produce a standardized can of tomatoes. It is not an easy thing to bring raw untrained country girls through a season of growing tomatoes and canning with hands made skillful by the constant use of the capping steel; with the understanding of what constitutes standard quality and standard weight; and with a knowledge of sterilization that will be her insurance against spoilage. Those who do not know what it means to establish a standard output of canned products with untrained labor can never know the slough of despondency through which these agents traveled.

It was only by gripping each other tightly by the hand and holding fast to a belief in the ultimate outcome that they managed to push through the dark period of criticism and distrust and come to where they saw the products of a girl’s canning placed side by side with the best commercial brands and heard the County Commissioners who had thought it unwise to risk $75.00 per year of the county’s money declare that the sum they appropriate for the employment of a whole-time home demonstration agent was the best spent money the county paid out of its treasury.

Marketing begun with farm girls made a quick appeal to their mothers, and many of them joined hands with their daughters in a mother-daughter partnership.

Markets were held with State institutions, hotels, and individuals, and customers’ satisfaction with the full pack and good quality brought an ever-increasing trade.