Mother Nature's erratic method of one year loading the tomato vines to breaking and, the next, searing the vines to the point of crop failure creates canning problems for the homemaker. Especially because canning has been a sort of year-to-year affair. If there were more tomatoes than the family could eat during the winter months, the neighbors got the rest if they didn't have too many themselves- or sometimes they even wasted in their lush glory.