288 THE ADDRESSES, LECTURES, ETC., OF 



Another application of electricity, also at any rate indicated at 

 the Paris Exhibition, is that to agriculture and horticulture, upon 

 which I have been practically engaged during the last two winters 

 on my farm near Tunbridge Wells. This is neither the time nor 

 place for me to enlarge upon this application, which should be 

 mentioned, however, because I believe that it will ultimately 

 exercise a considerable influence upon an important interest, 

 besides providing a means of adding to the pleasures of country 

 pursuits. Electro-culture by itself would be expensive, but not so 

 if combined, as it is at Sherwood, with the utilisation of electric 

 energy for accomplishing other objects such as chaff- and root- 

 cutting at one place, wood-cutting at another, and pumping of 

 water at a third, while the waste heat of the steam at the generat- 

 ing station is utilised to heat the water circulating through the 

 greenhouses, &c. In this way labour and expense are saved in 

 many ways, and the men employed on the farm find no difficulty 

 in working the electrical horses, no longer experimentally, but as a 

 regularly established thing. 



A somewhat special application of electricity, also shown at the 

 Paris Exhibition, is its employment as a heating agent. For 

 temperatures not exceeding that of a welding furnace, solid or 

 gaseous fuel produces the desired effect at a cheaper rate than it is 

 likely to be accomplished by electricity. When electricity is used, 

 heat energy has in the first place to be transferred from the burn- 

 ing fuel to the boiler of the steam engine. The mechanical energy 

 of the engine works the dynamo-electric machine, whence electric 

 energy is transmitted through the conductor to the point where it is 

 to be utilised as heat, At each intermediate stage a loss will have 

 to be incurred, and it is therefore absolutely certain that the 

 amount of heat finally produced in the electric arc must fall very 

 much short of that generated by the fuel under the boiler. But 

 the electric arc has this advantage over other sources of heat, that 

 no waste heat need pass away from it in the shape of heated pro- 

 ducts of combustion. This loss of heat in the furnace by combus- 

 tion increases with the temperature at which the work has to be 

 accomplished, and reaches its maximum in a furnace for melting 

 steel or platinum. Beyond this the point is soon reached where 

 combustion ceases entirely, where, to use the scientific phrase, the 

 point of dissociation of carbonic acid is reached ; and it is for pur- 



