CANNING AND FREEZING FOODS.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 3129, 8 December 1899, Page 4

CANNING AND FREEZING FOODS.

—^ — . But a few years ago the discovery was made by thoughtful or accidental experiment that ripe fruitsand many choice vegetables could be p.eaerved for use during all the year, retaining their natural and delightful flavours, and thus lengthening arjd multiplying many times over the season oi their enjoyment by all man ki nd . Th c grea t secret of " hermetlcal sealing" had lain like a,n undis-covert-d nugget through all the ages jaat beneath the crust of everyday humao thought until someone broke that crust, and the nugget Bhone out with a light co lull and so useful as to enrich the lives of untold millionß of people. And the art of "canning," more than anyone can dream (much less compute), has become a great and lasting blessing to the whole civilised world. And then, just a little later, m this same field followed the scientific discoveries and practical triumphs of refrigeration, which widened the field of human industry, and addedmoreto the comfort and luxury of human life than any olher discovery of the 19th century The fact that vegetables and animal products decay rapidly m warm temperatures, and resist decay m cold atmospheres, had of course been known through all history. But the artificial application of that great truth of nature to the affairs of everyday life had not been understood or determined until the present generator n. Bat now it has been demonstrated that great storehouses, holding thousands or tens of thousands oi bushels of selected fruits, can be filled with cold air, and so Bteadily and evenly held at a low temperature and nt a given degree of humidity that the fruit m its natural state, charming and beautiful and luscious as it came from the tree or vine, can be kept m almost perfect condition, substantially all the year round, and that car-loads and ship-loads of beef and pork and other meats, fresh from the abbatoirs of our western cities, can be Bafely carried, and are being carried, to all the great markets of the world.