94 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



are, the less will their agreeable taste sufier ; the poorer, the greater such 

 danger. 



Experiments hav'e been made \vith all kinds of provisions, drinks, and 

 fruit. The result so far reached is this, that every kind endures a cer- 

 tain low temperature, below which one cannot venture without injuring 

 the flavor. Especially fruit and most kinds of flowers are very sensi- 

 tive in this respect. To treat them directly with ice-cold air will, I 

 think, not succeed ; but perhaps the indirect method, or the now com- 

 mon cold-air method for cooling off the ijreserving-room will do better. 

 Pork is also somewhat difficult to handle, but for a different reason : it 

 requires such intense cold to be entirely protected. Again, it has been 

 found that the more uniform the cold is kei)t the better. 



My informant states that the use of ice as a means of preserving 

 these articles dates back only twelve years. A patent for freezing sal- 

 mon had yielded the patentee $30,000 to $40,000 ; but while the patent 

 was respected concerning salmou, competitors soon learned that the 

 patent-right was not infringed upon by employing freezing for other 

 provisions, and after a lawsuit respecting it the patentee lost, as the 

 tribunal tleclared that freezing other articles of food than salmon was 

 free or not patented. At the same time the use of ice is considered yet 

 to be ni its iufancj, or taken as a whole only to have accpiired iuipor- 

 tance in the treatment of salmon and some other tish-wares, together 

 with fresh meat. With regard to fruit no one has gone beyond experi- 

 ment ; but as soon as the proper ice treatment is discovered one uuist 

 admit that America will export to Europe large quantities of fresh fruit,* 

 just as is already the case with fresh meat, and experimentally wit!i 

 fresh salmon. 



VII. 



TWO KINDS OF EEFRIGEKATORS OX BOARD PACKET 

 STEAMERS FOR CARRYING FRESH MEAT. 



As the transportation of fresh meat from America to Europe in steam- 

 ers has attracted marked attention, and as a similar transfer of fresh 

 fish will ])erhaps in time become an example for the Norwegian tish and 

 game dealers, I undertook a journey across in a steamer which was fur- 

 nished with cooMng-otf apparatus (refrigerators), and then remained uuiny 

 days in Liverpool to investigate the condition of the meat after the \'oy- 

 age, and to make myself better acquainted with all the details of the 

 arrangement. 



So far as my experience goes, the method employed in the transporta- 

 tion of fresh meats across the Atlantic is copied from a rather common 

 method of refrigeration used by the pork-butchers in the West. This last- 



* Fruit-growing- is a great industry iii the United States. Miicli is exviortetl in the 

 form of conserved and preserved frnit. 01" all kinds of apples alone were exported in 

 1875, as officially advised, more than .$1,000,000 v.-orrh. 



