SIXTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 71 



Storage houses in which to receive them, 'ihese depots for 

 perishable food stuffs are to be found throughout the world. 

 They enable each locality to have at command at any season 

 the products of all climates. They take up, as reservoirs, from 

 the yield of the season whatever exceeds current demand, and 

 hold it safely until the market calls for it. Prices do not range 

 so high as once they did, because the markets nowadays are 

 never without reserve stock ; prices do not fall so ruinously low, 

 because the temporary surplus can be stored instead of sacri- 

 ficed. The cost of good living is made lower, the business of 

 producing and dealing in food stuffs is made safer. 



The up-to-date cold storage house has also an important 

 sanitary function. It is a guarantor of good food. 



The not uncommon notion that goods in cold st(irage are 

 somewhat impaired, has some justification in experience with 

 the comparatively crude methods of several years ago, or with 

 the imperfect results obtained today in houses whose improve- 

 ment in appliance and method has not kept pace with the swift 

 advance of the art. It is not sufficient for the preservation of 

 goods according to standards of 1900 to run them into a big 

 room and keep it pretty cold. Competition may be relied upon to 

 enforce among storage houses the law of the survival of the fit- 

 test. The up-to-date storage house with its elal)orate system of 

 ventilating shafts, ducks and dampers to keep the air in its 

 rooms always pure, with its partitions, false ceilings and blow- 

 ers for interior air circulation, its duplicate machines and rein- 

 forced refrigerating coils for emerg'encies, its outfit of thermo- 

 meters, gauges, psychrometers and what not, automatically 

 registering all conditions, is a costly plant to erect and equip. 

 Complete equipment and competent management insures perfect 

 preservation and make storage of superior goods highly profit- 

 able, but the expen.se involved precludes the storage of inferior 

 goods which at no time Ijrings good prices. It follows that 

 what comes from a first-class storage house not only is good 

 as when it went in, l)ut was excellent stock to start with. There- 

 fore the cold storage business tends to improve the quality of 

 the general food supply. The practical benefits of a well- 

 equipped cold storage plant in any community is something 

 which cannot be lightly estimated. 



