June 1907] 



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Edible Products. 



take 120,000 bags oft' the market, not to be held over till a smaller crop, but taken 

 into actual consumption, the only rational method of decreasing stocks and over 

 supplies. That it is possible to organise and carry out educational propaganda is 

 shown by the success that has attended the operations of the Currant Bank of 

 Greece and the Anti-Tea Duty League. In the one case, the object was exactly 

 similar to what Ave propose here, and with a moderate expenditure not exceeding 

 £20,000, we believe the consumption of currants in this country, in face of a rise 

 in price, was increased 175,000 cwt. for 1006 or say 17 per cent., while the value 

 of the extra shipments to this country exceeded those of 1905 by no less than £713,000. 



The objects of the Anti-Tea Duty League were not quite similar. Here an 

 electorate had to be educated, and force brought to bear upon Parliamentary 

 opinion with the view of reducing the onerous burdens which short-sighted 

 Chancellors of the Exchequer had placed upon an important trade. Funds were 

 more limited, and the total expenditure for two years has not reached £10,000. 

 A remarkable success was, however, again achieved. A Parliamentary party of 

 upwards of 150 members has been secured in the House — all pledged categorically 

 to support a reduction of the duty and the British public has been enlightened on 

 a subject that very few, except such as were interested in the trade, and not always 

 then, had any idea about. The net result has already been shown in a reduction of 

 an 8d. duty to 5d., which means the removal of taxation to the extent of some 

 £3,000,000 per annum, and the appreciation of tea by an average over Id. per lb. 

 from the unremunerative depths to which it had sunk in the dark days of 1904, 

 to say nothing of the increase in the capital value of shares in tea companies by 

 some seven or eight millions sterling. 



The lesson is obvious. The same forces can be used. Educational spade 

 work can be done in the country — pressure can be brought to bear to ensure the 

 more strict application, and if need be, the strengthening of the Food and Drugs 

 Acts, and then coffee may once more be king. Another point which occurs to us 

 at the movement is this. London is finding the money for the whole scheme, but 

 the coffee is being shipped any where else, New York, Havre, Hamburg, Antwerp 

 and Liverpool, are all receiving consignments to be warehoused for a year or more. 

 Why are not our waiehousekcepers asking for, and getting, their share ?— Tropical 

 Life. 



THE VALUE OF SUGAR AS FOOD. 



Many experiments made with sugar in some one of its forms, as a food stuff, 

 have developed the fact that a quick relief is given by it when an ordinary sense of 

 fatigue is experienced. This has seemed almost to require the title of sugar stimu- 

 lation, rather than that of sugar nutrition, yet any analysis of sugar shows that it is 

 a carbohydrate food and of very definite value and apparently there is nothing 

 mysterious about it. 



It is said that all sugar when eaten must be converted into glucose preparatory 

 to its assimilation. From glucose it becomes glycose, through the action of the 

 digestive ferments and then becomes glycogen, or animal starch in the manipulation 

 of which the liver is an important factor and furnishes the heat and work of the 

 body. It is believed that the glycose entering into the food when aerated in the 

 lungs is changed into carbonic acid and water, the former of which is thrown off by 

 the lungs. The quick assimilation and the resolution of the siigar into the blood and 

 the fact that it gives practically no residuary products of an injurious character, 

 excepting the carbonic acid, which is so readily disposed of, renders it the quick 

 acting food that it is. 



The sense of fatigue that comes to tired men and to tired animals is said to be 

 owing to the presence of residuary products other than the carbonic acid, and the 

 ease with which the carbonic acid may be expelled from the system. 



If our planters would give more attention to the careful use of molasses as a 

 food article for live stock they would learn more and more of its merits the longer 

 they use it.— Louisiana Planter. 



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