BOILING DOWN AND PRESERVING SHEEP.

Timaru Herald, Volume VII, Issue 248, 12 October 1867, Page 3

BOILING DOWN AND PRESERVING SHEEP.

The A Australasian of the 28th ult. says : —

At the meeting of stock owners yesterday, it was decided to start a company with a capital of £15,000, m shares of £5 each. The intention is to trust to boiling down alone at first for a profit, but to try the English market cautiously at the same time with extract of meat preserved m tins. Tho capital is small, but there will bo little outlay for plant, as premises at the Saltwater river, quite suitable for the purpose, can be leased at once, und as tallow is shipped, advances can be obtained upon it from the banks. Even the trilling consignments already made by different people have raised the minimum price of sheep m the Melbourne market, and the commencement of operations by this company will at once fix this at the highest at which it will pa}' to boil down. But now that the particulars of Mr Mori's method of freezing meat have been made known, there is good reason to believe that this will be eventually by far the easiest aud most profitable way of disposing of our surplus meafc, if, indeed, tho adoption of the same plan ' of conveying meat from other parts of the world docs not bring down the price of imported meat m England. According to the published descriptions, tho first outlay on iron meat- receivers, or tanks, and an apparatus for carrying out the refrigerating process on board of each ship occasionally during the voyage, will not be great, and there is very littlo waste of the material used — ammonia. These (the tanks and apparatus) will, of course have to bo carried to and fro from England by ships taking meat as part of their cargo homo ; and the freight will be the most serious item of cost m sending frozen meat to find a market. In consequence of discoveries worked out to a practical issue by Mr Mort and his assistants, Messrs Nicolle and Morris, near Sydney, the cost of actual freezing will.be very small. This is effected by an application of the well-known principle of the rapid absorption of heat by gas when passing from the liquid to the gaseous state, and, with the apparatus used, the gas — ammoniacal is deemed safest — is frequently changed from one state to the other m an outer coating to the mr-at receiver and m the different cylinders, the heat abstracted from the receiver being carried off by water. The only agent required to effect' these changes is a small proportion of steam, so that the actual freezing is accomplished with a . trifling consumption of fuel, and can be carried on as well aboard ship as elsewhere. But when the contents of a tank m the lower hold of a ship are once frozen, any abstraction of the heat absorbed then, or renewed freezing will be but seldom required during the. passage. This plan has been carefully tested for months past, and experiments now it progress are expected to reduce the size of the working apparatus by oue half.This will be a great advantage, but even m its present state, tho application of such a cheap mode of freezing large substances seems destined to add vastly to the value of perishable articles raised m thinlypopulated parts of the world, and to add m like proportion to the work there will be for shipping to do. For instance, if we want to send away the enrcases of a million of sheep m the year, these will weigh from 20,000 to 25,000 tons, m addition to the weight of the iron tanks required to hold them. This is a part of the subject that must not be- lost, sight of, or we will find it more difficult to get tonnage for our surplus meat than we do now for our so much smaller bulk of surplus grain. Not that a million bushels of wheat would weigh less, or take lip much less room, than the carcases of a million sheep, but the former need nob be shipped all . at once, while the shoep, to bo disposed of m .this way, would have to be all killed within two or three months, or while at the fattest: Tallow may remain m store, but there will not be receivers on shore to hold very many of the sheep, even if they could be all frozen as soon as killed. Of course, the freezing plan could not be adopted with anything like this number without much preparation, but it must not be forgotten that we have some two millions of sheep to convert into a marketable form as quickly after shearing as may be, and even m the most portable shape, the tallow and extract, or preserved meat, from them will amount to the weight or measurement stated, and will have to be shipped along with much the heaviest clip of wool ever sent from here.