Fixing the price of the goods is important. Make it high enough to cover all expenses and give you a fair return for your labor. The expenses will be the fruit, sugar, fuel, jars, glasses, boxes, packing material, wear and tear of utensils, etc., transportation, and commission. The commission will probably be 20 per cent of the selling price. It may be that a merchant will find that your prices are too high or too low for his trade, or he may wish to purchase the goods outright. In any case it is essential that you estimate the full cost of the product and the value that you place on your labor. You will then be in a position to decide if the prices offered will compensate you for the labor and expense. Do not be tempted, for the sake of a little money, to deprive your family of the fruit necessary to health and pleasure.
Each jar or jelly glass must be wrapped in several thicknesses of soft paper (newspapers will answer). Make pads of excelsior or hay by spreading a thick layer between the folds of newspapers. Line the bottom and sides of the box with these pads. Pack the fruit in the padded box. Fill all the spaces between the jars with the packing material. If the box is deep and a second layer of fruit is to go in, put thick pasteboard or thin boards over the first layer and set the wrapped jars on this. Fill all the spaces and cover the top with the packing material. Nail on the cover and mark clearly: GLASS. THIS SIDE UP.
The great secret in packing is to fill every particle of space so that nothing can move.
In the preservation of foods by canning, preserving, etc., the most essential things in the processes are the sterilization of the food and all the utensils and the sealing of the sterilized food to exclude all germs.
Over one hundred years ago François Appert was the first to make practical application of the method of preserving food by putting it in cans or bottles, which he hermetically sealed. He then put the full bottles or cans in water and boiled them for more or less time, depending upon the kinds of food.
In Appert's time and, indeed, until recent years it was generally thought that the oxygen of the air caused the decomposition of food. Appert's theory was that the things essential to the preservation of food in this manner were the exclusion of air and the application of gentle heat, as in the water bath, which caused a fusion of the principal constituents and ferments in such a manner that the power of the ferments was destroyed.