70 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The application of the principles of thermodynamics to the 

 business of preserx'ing food products, not salted, dessicated, 

 smoked, pickled, or otherwise treated, but in their natural 

 condition, rivals in the success and importance of its results 

 any of the achievements of science in the wide realm of the 

 world's economies and comforts. It has provided a balance 

 wheel to equalize and distribute the load between food demand 

 and food supply, and instituted a storage battery for the ulti- 

 mate generator of human powers — the stomach. 



The art of mechanical refrigeration began to gain the con- 

 fidence of business men within the last Cjuarter century. Its 

 practical development and the transformation and enlarge- 

 ment of the industry to which it is applied, have been so rapid 

 and so great that adequate statements of them is impossible. 



The refrigerator cars of Swift, Armour, Schwartzchild, 

 and other dealers in meat and perishable products have become 

 as familiar objects to the traveller as coal cars or Pullman 

 sleepers. From London sail a hundred and fifty ships built to 

 carry chilled and frozen meats, together with fruits, vegetables, 

 butter, eggs and cheese, and, in fact, any product that is of a 

 highly perishable nature and that would carry better while 

 under refrigeration. The lines of travel of refrigerated ves- 

 sels touch every ocean port and make a network upon the map 

 of the high seas. In 1906 they brought from Australia and 

 New Zealand home to England two hundred million pounds of 

 nmtton and lamb and seventy-five million pounds of beef all 

 frozen. In the same year our country sent to Great Britain 

 two hundred and seventy-five million pounds of chilled beef. 

 Of course, this beef was first carried from the plains to our 

 Atlantic Coast. Add to that a far larger amount distributed 

 over the United States from the great slaughtering and pack- 

 ing houses of the middle \A'est. .\dd then some estimate of 

 the perishable food stuffs other than meat, such as apples, 

 oranges, peaches, pears, apricots, plums, etc., likewise dis- 

 tributed or exported and your calculations will approach the 

 volume of traffic in refrigerated food stufi's. 



These refrigerated ships and cars connect cold storage 

 houses. Australia has twenty-five establishments in which to 

 freeze her export meats and London has as many more cold 



