Wilson & McCullough to start up for one month to ascertain fruit jar business

THE MANUFACTURE OF FRUIT

JARS BY MACHINERY.

Wilson & McCullough Will Fire Up

and Run a Month to Ascertain

Where They Stand.

Marion Chronicle.

A good deal of uncertainty as to the future of the manufacture of fruit jars is entailed by the perfecting of the machine by which Ball Brothers, of Muncie, will manufacture their fruit jars in the future. J. Wood Wilson, of the firm of Wilson & McCullough, of this city, talked last evening in an interesting manner of the effect of the machine on the trade. Under the present system, he said, the cost of labor in a gross of fruit jars is ninety-four cents. By the machines which have been placed in the factory of Ball Bros. the cost of the same amount of work is 18 cents. One of these machines costs $500, and a single machine will do the work of two men. At the same time it is claimed that the machine made jar is a smoother and more perfect article. There is grave apprehension among the fruit jar manufacturers by the old process that Ball Bros., being interested in the patent under which the machines are made, will also be able to control the fruit jar product.

The fruit jars in stock, manufactured under the old process, are valued at from $4.50 to $5 a gross. What effect the introduction of the machines will have in the direction of bearing the price remains to be seen. Mr. Wilson said that his firm would resume September 1, and continue in operation a month, and at the end of that time they expected to be able to tell where they stand as a result of the introduction of the machine.