Feb. 14, 1878] 



NATURE 



301 



nature of the excisions, transpositions, and other devices 

 by which the Roman forger set to work to elirranate from 

 the manuscript all trace of Galileo's having been, as 

 Scartazzini stoutly maintains that he was, submitted to 

 the actual torture, S, T. 



THE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 

 The Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England. Part II,, 1877. 



THE current number of the Royal Agricultural Society's 

 Journal is chiefly occupied with reports of the 

 agricultural exhibitions held during the present summer 

 at Liverpool and at Hamburg, and with reports on farms 

 in Lancashire, Cheshire, and North Wales, which ob- 

 tained the Society's prizes for good management at th6 

 Liverpool meeting. Another report deals with prize 

 farms in Ireland in connection with the competition for 

 small farms instituted by tarl Spencer. Besides these 

 we have two lengthy papers on the American export meat 

 trade, by Prof Sheldon, of Cirencester, and by Prof, 

 Alvord, of Easthampton, Massachusetts ; three papers on 

 village clubs, by Sir E, C, Kerrison, and Mr. Lawes ; a 

 paper on the impurities of clover seed, by Mr, Carruthers ; 

 and a short report of some investigations on foot-and- 

 mouth disease, conducted at the Brown Institution. 



The international exhibition at Hamburg was one of 

 considerable importance : it was devoted exclusively to 

 dairy husbandry. Lying, as Hamburg does, in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of the great dairy countries of 

 Northern Europe, an excellent opportunity was afforded 

 of noting the advance made in dairy work during the last 

 few years. The great improvement which has sig- 

 nalised this period is undoubtedly the use of ice in 

 cream-setting. This invention dates from] 1864, and 

 is the work of J. G, Swartz, a Swedish farmer. In the 

 ordinary method of cream-setting the milk is placed in 

 very shallow pans, and stands for thirty-six hours or more 

 while the cream is rising. The milk during this time 

 usually turns sour, and the cream becomes contaminated 

 with free fatty acids, with partially decomposed albu. 

 minous bodies, and with other products injurious to the 

 flavour or keeping qualities of the butter. In Swartz's 

 plan the milk, as soon as it reaches the dairy, is placed 

 in deep metal pails, standing in a vessel full of ice. Not 

 only does the low temperature reduce the process of 

 change to a minimum,\but, quite unexpectedly, it also 

 greatly facilitates the rising of the cream ; so that in pails 

 having sixteen inches', depth of milk the cream is nearly 

 all obtained in twelve hours. The butter churned from 

 this sweet cream is not only very pure in flavour, but has 

 remarkable keeping qualities. This plan, which is rapidly 

 spreading in the north of Europe, and in the United 

 States, is at present scarcely known in England. One 

 obstacle to the general use of the method is undoubtedly 

 the difficulty of procuring a sufficient supply of ice in 

 such a climate as ours. This difficulty has been greatly 

 diminished by the investigations of Prof. Fjord, of Copen- 

 hagen. He has shown that snow, if collected after 

 thawing has begun, may be easily trodden into as small 

 a compass as ice, and may be used with equal economy. 

 The collection of snow is also far less laborious than the 

 carting of ice, as the snow may be gathered in th^ imme- 



diate neighbourhood of the homestead. Let us hope that 

 English dairy farmers will not be slow' to adopt the scien- 

 tific methods of their continental brethren. 



Statistics regarding the meat-producing capabilities of 

 the United States and Canada are fully given by Profs. 

 Sheldon and Alvord. The number of cattle in the 

 United States is at present about 28,000,000, or three 

 times as many as those in Great Britain and Ireland, 

 The proportion of cattle to population is, in the United 

 States and Canada, about 67 : 100 ; while in the British 

 Isles the proportion is about 29 : 100, The total area of 

 the farms in the United States is about 8^ times that of 

 the farmed land in the British Isles, while vast tracts of 

 country yet remain to be cultivated. In 1875 the number 

 of acres under Indian corn in the United States all but 

 equalled the whole number of acres under cultivation in 

 our own country. 



With such enormous capabilities of production, the 

 only condition wanting for a large export trade is a cheap 

 and efficient means of transit. That such a mode of 

 transit has now been established is proved by the quan- 

 tities of meat already exported to England, We received 

 in 1876, from New York and Philadelphia, 19,838,895 lbs. 

 of fresh beef ; and the trade has so rapidly extended, that 

 in the first four months of 1877 the imports exceeded 

 the whole import of the preceding year, and amounted 



to 22,8l2,I28,lbs. 



The means adopted to preserve so perishable an article 

 as fresh meat during the long journey from America to 

 England is artificial cold. The cattle are slaughtered at 

 the port of embarkation. At the establishment in New 

 York an ox is killed, and the skin and offal removed in 

 the space of three minutes. The carcase is then cooled 

 to 40° F, in a room through which a constant current of 

 cold air is maintained from an ice chamber. After forty- 

 eight hours the carcase is cut up, and placed in the 

 refrigerators of the steamer, and thus conveyed to 

 England, During the voyage a temperature of 37* — 40° 

 is maintained, a stream of dry cold air being circulated 

 through the meat-chamber. 



The source of cold has hitherto been ice, but a new 

 cooling agent of great power and adaptability promises 

 soon to supersede the use of ice. The invention is due 

 to Messrs. Giffard and Berger, of Paris. In their process 

 air is condensed by a steam-engine, the heat evolved on 

 condensation being removed by a stream of cold water. 

 The cool condensed air is then conveyed to the chamber 

 which is to be refrigerated, on entering which it is 

 allowed to expand again to atmospheric pressure. The 

 cold thus produced is intense. The ease with which the 

 cooling power can be conveyed to distant places, and the 

 fact that ventilation, as well as cold, is accomplished, will 

 probably procure numerous applications for this valuable 

 invention. 



For the extension and success of the American meat 

 trade we now only require to erect suitable refrigerating 

 stores, and to provide refiigerating railway-cais, for the 

 safe conveyance and preservation of the carcase after it 

 has reached our shores. 



We have no space to refer in detail to the remaining 

 articles. Those who feel an interest in the improvement 

 of the agricultural labourer will find much suggestive 

 matter in the papers on village clubs, while the kindred 



