The Green caldron - University Library

DEAR
Dear Mr. Ford
Lloyd L, Lehn
Rhetoric loo. Theme 5
TENNESSEE ERNIE FORD:
I have seen you start your television show by coming on stage and
shouting, "Hello, all you pea-pickers." Last summer I was employed
in a pea-canning factory. The workers of this factory and I came to the con-
clusion that you don't know anything about the preparation of peas. Peas are
packed and not picked, Mr. Ford. I would like to explain pea packing to you.
The factory at which I was employed is located near Mendota, Illinois. It
is a division of the California Packing Corporation. Workers in the factory
came from throughout the United States. Approximately 400 of us lived in
barracks near the factory. The remainder of the employees were scattered on
twenty-two farm stations in the surrounding area. Each farm crew consisted
of approximately twenty men.
Work on the farms started as soon as the early-morning dew was off the
ground. The pea vines were cut with a mower and then loaded on wagons and
taken to the viner. Here the vines and peas were separated. The vines were
stacked in a huge pile and later used as silage. The peas were loaded onto
trucks and transported to the main factory.
Upon arrival at the factory, the peas, dirty from being out in the fields,
entered a system of flowing water which washed them. The water entered this
system as clear drinking water but left as a dirty black stream. The volume of
water used in this operation was so great that the factory maintained its own
purification plant. The peas leaving this bath were separated by their different
weights ; the light peas floated on the surface of the water and the heavy peas
sank to the bottom. The light peas were sold as inferior peas. The peas continued
on to where they were spread out on wide white rubber belts. Women
sitting beside these belts removed the discolored peas and discarded them. The
peas were then conveyed to the hoppers above the canning machines.
As the peas were put into the cans, they were mixed with a salt and sugar
solution. The sealed cans were loaded into carts, each cart containing about
1000 cans. The carts were placed into retorts where the peas were cooked for
an hour. As the carts were removed from the retorts, they were sent to the
"scrambler," which took the cans out of the carts and sent them to the labeler.
The labeler was the most delicate machine on the can line, and it caused the
most trouble ; however, when it was working properly, the labeler could label
four to five cans per second. The cans then rolled to the boxer, which put
twenty-four cans in each box as fast as the cans were labeled. The boxes were
stacked on pallets and removed to the warehouse for shipment.
The above is the operation of only one can line in the factory. The entire
I