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Detail 1

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The first tin-plated iron can was patented in England in 1810 and introduced in the United States in 1818. Later improvements in metal working created the tin-alloy can like this. The edges of the sheets of tin making up the can are soldered, a process that improved over time and was not completely abandoned until the 1920s. This can held maple syrup harvested and made in Greenfield, Massachusetts, located in Franklin County, around 1900. Then, as now, Franklin County was Massachusetts' largest producer of maple syrup; today, eighty-four of the state's 214 farms are located there. The state produces some 44,000 gallons of syrup in an average year; however, that is dwarfed by the production of Vermont, which in 2000 produced an estimated 460,000 gallons. Massachusetts is the fifth largest producer of syrup in the country, after Vermont, New York, Maine, and New Hampshire.

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