162 
Economy of Nitrogen. 
[April ( 
deprecating. The. annual amount of malt made in this 
country is somewhere about 47 million bushels, or, in round 
numbers, 2000 million pounds, A very large part of the 
nitrogen originally present in the grain is wasted. A small 
quantity is indeed to be found in malt liquors as supplied to 
the consumer, but too little generally to be of appreciable 
dietetic value. The bulk is lost in the various stages of the 
process. Hence, from a chemico-economical point of view, 
the repeal of the malt tax, or any fiscal measure which shall 
encourage the application of grain or other highly nitro- 
genous matter to the manufacture of fermented or distilled 
liquors, would be a mistake. Well would it have been if 
the art of malting had never been invented, and if mankind 
had been content to procure their alcoholic beverages from 
fruits and from saccharine juices of comparatively low 
dietetic value, and have kept grain of all kinds for exclusive 
use as food. 
But there is a use of nitrogenous matter even more pal- 
pably and lamentably wasteful than the manufactures of 
starch, of gum-substitutes, of vinegar, alcohol, &c., from 
grain. Indian corn is actually to some extent used as fuel, 
—a misappropriation rendered more feasible by the propor- 
tion of oily matter which it contains. That under such 
circumstances the bulk of its nitrogen will be wasted, by 
escaping in the free state, admits of no doubt. 
Nitrogenous matter of animal origin is perhaps less sys- 
tematically wasted than is the gluten of grain. Albumen 
obtained Irom eggs is indeed somewhat extensively applied 
by calico-printers as a mordant for inducing cotton to take 
up colours, especially the coal-tar dyes, in the same manner 
as do silk and wool. Unfortunately the albumen of blood, 
which is highly improper as food, has not yet been made 
available in all cases as a substitute for egg-albumen, inas- 
much as it has not been practically procurable in a colourless 
state. Hence there is here room for a mordant capable of 
“ animalising ” vegetable tissues, and yet involving no waste 
of human food. 
The use of wool in clothing does not involve the loss of 
combined nitrogen which might be at first suspeCted. The 
ultimate destination of the dust from the shoddy mill, and 
of the fibre itself when no longer capable of being re-spun, 
is to the manure manufactory and to the fields. With 
leather the case is less favourable. The raw hides of ani- 
mals, though probably worthless as the food of man, are of 
great value as a nitrogenous manure ; but after the tanning 
process they are scarcely, if at all, available as plant-food. 
