Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 22 October 1896, Page 2

Notes and Events.

Mr Nelson, of meat preserving fame, gave a very good insight into some of the causes for the cargoes of frozen meat being found* bad on arrival at London, before a Parliamentary Committee. He said " the shipping is not clear from blame, neither are the freezing-works. The chief thing that I am disposed to think accounts for this trouble is the very common praotice of shipping meat before it has been sufficiently frozen."

A sheep that is hard on the outside is not necesearily a properly frozen sheep. The heat in a sheep cannot, according to Mr Nelson, be extracted under a week's freezing. If the sheep is not properly frozen on being shipped the first funotion of the Bhip's machinery is to complete ihe freezing. This raises the question whether the power on board a vessel is sufficient to keep the frozen sheep at the proper temperature and provide the extra cooling to complete the freezing company's duty. Mr Nelson is not in favour of the large holds in vessels partly on this account.

If a ship's hold is filled up with sheep that have been frozen twentyfour or even forty-eight hours only, there is so much stowed-away heat in the accumulated contents of a ship's hold that in due course the whole cargo begins to suffer.

Attributing bone stink to the ship is an utterly preposterous thing, as it arises from the centre of a sheep and can only arise at one stage in the manipulation of a cheep. For instance, Mr Nelson sayg, if any company tries to do more work than they are able to carry out with their appliances, they might get their sheep too ihickly hung up, so that the heat cannot get away from them. Those sheep may remain at a certain temperature, which temperature is the proper one for setting up putrefaotion. It can only be at that stage, and though the sheep is frozen bone* stink may be set up inside it prior to freezing.

Any mischief that comes to sheep after they ara frozen must come from the outside and not the inside. During all the years that Nelson Bros, have been at work. they have never had such a thing as bonestink in sheep, and no complaint has been made.

Ships are supposed to cool their holds for storage of frozen meat forty-eight hours before loading. Thirty-six hours is the minimum. There is not a more important point in the whob of the ship's responsibility than that cooling-down the holds before the meat is put in ; and it is one. says Mr Nelson, that has had the least attention paid to it.

Mildew and spottinesa is produced by allowing the freezing chamber on board ship or elsewhere to get into a partial thaw, something above 82 degrees, and remain in that condition for any appreciable period. It is the same in a freezing chamber as in a man's cellar. Where there is some damp the mildew at once arises. Spotting probably is a porof the mischief that commences simultaneously with mildew.