ME A T EXPOR T TEA DE. 205 



sterilised air till delivered in London, success will, in all probahility, bo 

 attained. At the same time, it will most likely Ijo found that if the 

 meat be chilled at tlxe outset in chambers in which the air is kept dry 

 and sterilised, and from which the moisture emanatiiii,' from the 

 carcases is carefully extracted, that afterwards it maybe carried safely 

 inordinary cool chambers; but this will have to be ascertained by 

 actual ex])orimont. The sterilisation of air, by means of which it is 

 thought chilled meat can be successfully conveyed long distances could 

 be very easily effected by a slight modification of the now discarded 

 Haslem dry air system. I3ut this system is much more ex])cnsi\'c thau 

 the ammonia system. At the same time it moy be mentioned here that 

 some of the lai'ge passenger steamers are using the dry air machines in 

 preference to the ammonia machines on account of the danger of 

 leakage. There is no difficulty at all in carrying chilled meat by rail, 

 for Dr. Perkins, of California, has successfully introduced a process by 

 which the overflow air of the Wcstinghouse brake is ingeniously used 

 for the supply of cold, dry, sterilised air in the conveyance of fruit or 

 meat in the cars. Too much sti*ess cannot be laid on the importance 

 of bringing the conveyance of meat by this method to a successful 

 issue, as once Australian meat is successfully put on the Home market 

 chilled instead of frozen, future progress will be comparatively simple. 

 To conserve and convey meat by cold, dry, sterilised air need not 

 involve much expenditure, while the article produced will yield much 

 higher returns than frozen meat, and will keep better after being 

 opened up thau meat chilled in the usual way. 



Defrosting. 



It is, however, more than possible that the lately introduced process 

 of defrosting meat will give better results to the grower than chilling. 

 So far, defrosted Australian meat of similar quality as American 

 chilled beef has not been able to compete with the chilled, in spite of 

 the smaller cost of conveyance, as chilled meat occupies more space 

 than frozen. The system of defrosting must assist the sale of frozen 

 meat, and it is perhaps just as well that it can only be successfully 

 applied to really good meat that has been well taken care of. An inde- 

 pendent witness writes of it : "1 saw defrosted beef and mutton looking 

 as fresh, clean, and bright, as if only a few hours from the slaughter- 

 house. It was, I understood, for the West End trade.'" The operation 

 of defrosting costs jd. a K., while the meat thus treated realises id. n 

 lb. over similar meat not thus treated. 



Future of the Trade. 



That an immense future lies before the meat export trade of Aus- 

 tralia is apparent when we consider the wonderful expansion of the 

 New Zealand frozen meat trade, which from an export of a few sheep 

 in 1882 has grown to over 2,000,000 head in 1894, valued at over 

 £1,102,000. In 1883 only 5,400 tons of frozen meat was exported 

 from Australasia and the Plate as compared to 118,000 tons in l8i>4. 

 An increase from -34 lb. to G-81 lb. per head of population. The frozen 



Note.— The values of meat are : first, best Scotch ; then, best English ; then, 



defrosted aud, last of all, frozen. 



