screw press we do not need to describe, as it consists simply of two
plates, brought together by a screw, in the same way as the press used
for squeezing apples in the manufacture of cider, and the cheese press.
Let us look therefore at the stamper press. It consists of an iron box,
open at the top, at each end of which are two plates, capable of
containing between them a bag of seed which shall yield a cake weighing
9 lbs. To one of the inner plates of the box is attached a wedge, beside
which is inserted another filling up, and then the driving wedge is
introduced; and lastly, another block is let in between this wedge and
the other plate as soon as the bags have been placed vertically in the
press-box. A stamper of wood, worked by cambs on a revolving shaft, is
allowed to fall about 1 foot 10 inches, at the rate of fifteen strokes a
minute, for about six minutes. This stamper is 16 feet long by 8 inches
square, and falls on the head of the wedge, and drives it in to a level
at the top of the box. Another stamper is employed to drive down an
inverted wedge, so as to release the working one, and enable the
attendant to take out the cake. A press of this kind will turn out only
about 12 cwts. of cake a day.
We come now to the hydraulic press. This is certainly the most approved
invention that has yet been adopted, and it is simply a Bramah press
adjusted for the purpose. It has been in use for about thirty years,
though it was, of course, at first less skilfully and scientifically
constructed than it is now. In one of the earliest of these presses, the
box which contains the seed runs on a tramway in order to facilitate its
removal from the heating-kettle, so that each time the bags have to be
replenished the whole box has to be removed; and this causes no
inconsiderable loss both of power and time, for it has, when filled, to
be replaced on the ram and lifted bodily upwards in order to bring it
flush with the top of the press, which fits the press-box and acts as a
point of resistance. In this arrangement there are introduced only one
press and one set of small pumps.
The next press we come to is Blundell's, which is admitted to be by far
the most efficient in use to-day. Here there are two distinct presses,
or a double hydraulic press, fed by two pumps, one 2-1/2 inches and the
other 1 inch in diameter, both connected with the separate cylinders by
hydraulic tubing. The stroke of these pumps is 5 inches, and they make
thirty-six strokes a minute. The larger pump is weighted to 740 lbs. on
the square inch, and the smaller to 5540 the square inch. The diameter
of the rams is 12 inches, and the stroke 10 inches. Each press is fitted
to receive four bags of seed, and it produces 64 lbs. of cake at each
operation. After the heated seed has been placed in the bags, the
attendant proceeds to fill one press, and then he opens the valve
between the large pump and the charged press, which causes the ram to
rise till there is a pressure of forty tons, whereupon the safety-valve
of the large pump opens, and is kept so by a spring. While this
operation is going on, the attendant is occupied with filling the second
press; which completed, he opens the communication between the large
pump and the second press, taking care first to replace the
safety-valve. The ram of this press is then raised to the same height as
the other, after which the safety-valve rises a second time. The
attendant, as he closes the valve which opens the communication between
the large pump and the press, at the same time opens the valve between
the small pumps and the presses; and the pressure, amounting to about
300 tons, exerted by the small pump, is allowed to remain on the rams
for about seven minutes. From which it appears that, allowing three
minutes for emptying and charging the press, the process of expressing
the oil takes only three minutes in all; and it is done by this press in
this brief time in the most effectual manner. The oil, as it is
expressed, passes through the canvas and hair bags to a cistern, known
as the spill-tank, which is just large enough to contain the produce of
one day's working. The presses are worked by oil instead of water, as it
keeps both presses and pumps in better order. Each of them will produce
36 cwts. of cake per day of eleven hours, while the yield of oil is
about 14 cwts. The oil is pumped from the spill-tanks to larger ones,
capable of holding from 25 to 100 tons, where it remains for some time
in order to settle previously to being brought to the market.
I do not intend to enter into the relative merits of the various
presses, but content myself with having explained to you the manner in
which the oil is produced.
Before concluding, it may be interesting to give you some idea of the
vast extent of this manufacture. It appears, according to the official
returns, that in the year 1841 we imported 364,000 quarters of seed.
THE OIL FROM LINSEED.
______________________________________________________
| 1842 | 368,000 | 1847 | 439,000 | 1852 | 800,000 |
| 1843 | 470,000 | 1848 | 799,000 | 1853 | 1,000,000 |
| 1844 | 616,000 | 1849 | 626,000 | 1854 | 828,000 |
| 1845 | 666,000 | 1850 | 668,000 | 1855 | 757,000 |
| 1846 | 506,000 | 1851 | 630,000 | 1856 | 1,100,000 |
______________________________________________________
Now if we take the last year's imports, we shall find that the produce
would amount to about 144,000 tons' weight of oil-cake, and above 56,000
tons of oil.
The cake is used for feeding cattle, and the oil for burning,
lubricating, painting, &c.; and a very large quantity is exported.
We find that to crush the seed imported in 1856 it required from 150 to
160 double hydraulic presses, nearly 100 of which were in Hull. This
shows the extent of our commerce in the seed of flax, to say nothing of
its fibre; and is one more instance of the great results which may be
wrought out of little things. What a beautiful illustration of the
bounty of Providence; and what an encouragement to the ingenuity of man!
Who knows what treasures may yet lie hidden in neglected fields, or to
what untold wealth the human family may one day fall heir?
_HODGE-PODGE: OR, WHAT'S INTILT._
WRITTEN NOV. 20, 1875, AT STAGENHOE PARK.
The subject and treatment, as well as title, of this Lecture are
suggested by the answer of the hostess at a Scottish inn to an English
tourist, who was inquisitive to know the composition of a dish which she
offered him, and which she called Hodge-Podge. "There's water intilt,"
she said, "there's mutton intilt, there's pease intilt, there's leeks
intilt, there's neeps intilt, and sometimes somethings else intilt." The
analysis was an exhaustive one, and the intelligence displayed by the
landlady was every way worthy of the shrewdness indigenous to her
country; but her answer was not so lucid to her listener as to herself,
as appeared by his bewildered looks, and his further half-despairing
interrogatory. "But what is _intilt_?" said he, impatiently striking in
before she had well finished. "Haven't I been tellin' ye what's
intilt?" she replied. And she began the enumeration again, only with
longer pause and greater emphasis at every step, as if she were
enlightening a slow apprehension,--"There's water intilt, there's mutton
intilt;" quietly and self-complacently adding, as she finished, "Ye
surely ken now what's intilt." Whether her guest now understood her
meaning, or whether he had to succumb, contented with his ignorance, we
are not informed; but few of my readers need to be told that "intilt" is
a Scotch provincialism for "into it," and that the landlady meant by
using it to signify that the particulars enumerated entered as
constituents _into_ her mysterious dish.
My aim is to discourse on the same constituents as they display their
virtues and play their parts on a larger scale, in a wider economy; and
when I have said my say, I hope I may be able to lay claim to the credit
of having spoken intelligibly and profitably, though I must at the
outset bespeak indulgence by promise of nothing more than the serving up
of a dish of simple hodge-podge. The question I put in a wider reference
is the question of the Englishman, as expressed in the Scotchwoman's
dialect, What's intilt? and I assume that there enter into it, as
radically component parts, at least the ingredients of this motley soup.
Into the large hodge-podge of nature and terrestrial economics, as into
this small section of Scotch cookery, there enter the element of water,
the flesh of animals, and the fruits of the earth, as well as the
processes by which these are brought to hand and rendered serviceable to
life. The ingredients of hodge-podge exist in _rerum natura_, and the
place they occupy and the function they fulfil in it are no less
deserving of our inquisitive regard.
Thus, there is water in it, without which there were no seas and no
sailing of ships, no rivers and no plying of mills, no vapour and no
power of steam, no manufacture and no trade, and not only no motion, but
no growth and no life. There is mutton, or beef, in it, and connected
therewith the breeding and rearing of cattle, the production of wool,
tallow, and leather, and the related manufactures and crafts. There are
turnips and carrots in it, the latter of such value to the farmer that
on one occasion a single crop of them sufficed to clear off a rent; and
the former of such consequence in the fattening of stock and the
provision of animal food, that a living economist divides society
exhaustively into turnip-producing classes and turnip-consuming. There
are leeks and onions in it, and these, with the former, suggest the art
of the gardener, and the wonderful processes by which harsh and fibrous
products can be turned into pulpy and edible fruits. And there are pease
and barley in it, and associated therewith the whole art of the
husbandman in the tillage of the soil and the raising of cereals, with
the related processes of grinding the meal, baking the bread, preparing
the malt, brewing the beer, and distilling the fiery life-blood at the
heart.
Now, to discourse on all these, as they deserve, would be a task of no
ordinary magnitude, but the subject is an interesting one, and to treat
of it ever so cursorily might not unprofitably occupy a reflective
moment or two. Water is the first topic it is laid upon me to talk
about, and I begin with it all the more readily because it suggests a
sense of freshness, and thoughts which may float our enterprise
prosperously into port.
I. Water, as already hinted, is an element of vast account in the
economy of nature, and is a recreation to the heart and a delight to the
eye of both man and beast. To have a plentiful supply of it is one of
the greatest blessings of God to the creature, and to be able to bestow
it wisely and employ it usefully is one of the most serviceable of human
arts. It is too valuable a servant to suffer to go idle, and many are
the offices it might do us, if, as it travels from the mountains to the
sea-board, we caught it in its course, harnessed it to our chariot, and
guided it to our aim. We should turn it to account every inch of its
progress, and compel it, as it can, to minister to our requirements by
its irresistible energy. Its merely mechanical power is immense, and
this is due in great part to its incompressibility; for it is in virtue
of this quality alone we can, by means of it, achieve feats not
otherwise feasible. How else could we have raised to its sublime height
that stupendous bridge which spans the Menai Straits, and which is the
wonder of the beholder, as it is the boast of the designer? It stands
where it does by the help of some mechanism indeed, but the true giant
that lifted it on his shoulders and bore it to its airy elevation was
the incompressible force of water, a fluid which is, strangely, the
simple product of the combination of two elastic transparent gases,
oxygen and hydrogen, neither of which apart has the thew and sinew of
its offspring. Nay, it is this single element, which, acted on by heat
or acting through machinery, fetches and carries for us over the wide
globe, and is fast weaving into one living web the far-scattered
interests of the world.
Water was in primitive times utilised into a motive power by the help of
a mechanism of rude design, which yet is hardly out of date, and might
recently be seen in its original, still more in modified form, in
certain back-quarters of civilisation. A stream, guided by a sluice, was
made to play upon four vertical paddle-blades, attached to a shaft which
they caused to revolve, and which moved a millstone, resting upon
another through which it passed. It was a primitive mill, which
superseded the still more primitive hand-mill, or quern; and I myself
have seen it at work in the Shetland Islands, and even the north of
Scotland, though it is now done away with even there, still more farther
south, and its place supplied and its work done by overshot and
under-shot wheel-gear, and improved machinery attached, of less or more
complexity. One of the most recent improvements is the Turbine, a sort
of Barker's mill; it is of great power, small compass, and acts under a
good fall with a minimum expenditure of water-power.
Passing from the consideration of water as a motive power in its natural
state, I ask you to notice briefly the gigantic force it can be made to
develop under the action of heat. In its normal form the power of water
is due, as I have said, to its incompressibility; in the state of
vapour, to which it is reduced by heat, its power is due to the counter
force of expansion. It was when confined as a state prisoner in the
Tower of London that the Marquis of Worcester began to speculate on the
possibilities of steam, though he little dreamed of its more important
applications, and the incalculable services it might be made to render
to the cause of humanity. Suddenly, one day, his musings in his solitude
were interrupted by the rattling of the lid of a kettle, which was
boiling away on the fire beside him, when, being of a philosophic vein,
he commenced to inquire after the cause; and he soon reasoned himself
into the conclusion that the motive power lay in the tension of the
vapour, and that the maintenance of this must be due to successive
additions of heat. The thought was a seed sown in a fit soil, for it led
to experiments which confirmed the supposition, and inaugurated others
that have borne fruit, as we see. It was a great moment in the annals of
discovery, and from that time to this the genius of improvement has
moved onward with unprecedented strides; and this in the application of
steam-power as well as the results, stupendous as these last have been.
For as there is no department of industry that has not made immense
advances since, none on which steam has not directly or indirectly been
brought to bear with effect; so there has been no end to the ingenuity
and ingenious devices by which steam has been coaxed into subjection to
human use and made the pliant minister of the master, man. All these
results follow as a natural consequence from the first discovery of its
motive power by the Marquis of Worcester, and the subsequent invention
of James Watt, by which the force detected was rendered uniform, instead
of fitful and spasmodic, as it had been before. And yet, important as
was the discovery of the one, and ingenious as is the invention of the
other, both are of slight account in the presence of the great fact of
nature observed by the English nobleman and humoured by the Scottish
artisan. The _genie_ whom the one captured and the other tamed, is the
great magic worker, apart from whose subtle strength their ingenuity had
been wasted, and had come to naught.
But here I must restrain my rovings, and recall my purpose to descant on
other points. And indeed the uses of water are so numerous and varied
that the subject might well engross a lecture by itself; and I must
needs therefore cut the matter short. It is only Hodge-Podge, moreover,
I have undertaken to dish up before you, and I must keep my word. For,
fain as I am to dilate on the many economic virtues of water, I must not
forget that the pot contains other ingredients, and that the dish I am
serving out of it would yield but poor fare, if it did not.
2. I come therefore to the next ingredient in the soup I am providing;
for, as the housewife said, "there's mutton intilt," and it is the most
important ingredient in the mess. But the animal which produces it, like
the kindred animals that produce the like, serves other purposes as
well, and these no less essential to the exigency of the race; and it is
of them I propose to speak. It is beside my design to enter on the
domain of the sheep-breeder, and attempt an account of the different
kinds reared by the farmer; enough to say that, numerous as these are,
they are all fed and tended for the benefit of the human family, and
that they minister to the supply of the same human wants.
The child, as it frolics on the lawn, stops his gambols and steps gently
aside to coax, to caress his woolly-fleeced companion; and the mother
talks softly to her child of the innocent darlings, and asks if they are
not lovely creatures, and beautiful to look at, as they timidly wander
from spot to spot, and nibble the delicate pasture. So it is to the
lively fancy of childhood, and so it is to the mother whose affections
are naturally melted into softness in the presence of simplicity; but
when economic considerations arise, and the question is one of service
and value, all such sentimental and aesthetic emotions pass out of
court, and only calculations of base utilitarianism fill the eye from
horizon to horizon. No doubt the creatures are lovely and beautiful to
behold on the meadows and hill-sides of the landscape, which they
enliven and adorn; but man must live as well as admire, and unless by
sacrifice of the sheep he must not only go without hodge-podge to his
dinner, but dispense with much else equally necessary to his life and
welfare. The cook requires the sacrifice, that he may purvey for the
tables of both gentle and semple; the tallow-dealer requires the
sacrifice, that he may provide light for our homesteads, and oil for our
engines, both stationary and locomotive; and the wool-merchant and the
currier insist on stripping the victim of his fleece, and even flaying
his skin, before they can assure us of fit clothing and covering against
cold and rain for our bodies and our belongings. And what a wretched
plight we should be in, if the sheep, or their like, did not come to the
rescue, or the help they are fitted to render were not laid under
contribution! For not only might we be fated to go often dinnerless to
bed, and to live all our days in a body imperfectly nourished, but our
evenings would in many cases be spent without light, and our journeys
undertaken without comfort, and our outer man left to battle at odds,
unshod and unprotected, with the discomforts of the highway and the
inclemency of the seasons. Of all the services rendered by the sheep to
the race of man, perhaps the most invaluable is that which is accorded
in the gift of wool; and it is for the sake of this alone that, in many
quarters, whole flocks, and even breeds, are reared and tended,--so
great is the demand for it, and such the esteem in which it is held for
the purpose of clothing the body and keeping it in warmth.
3. But, again, to advance a step further, there are, as the landlady of
the inn remarked, "neeps intilt." On this part of the subject, that I
may pass to the next topic on which I mean to speak, and which is of
wider range, I intend to say little. I have already referred to the
important place assigned to this vegetable by a living economist as
affording a basis for grouping society into two great classes. To the
farmer it is of equal, and far more practical, importance; for it is, by
the manner of its cultivation, a great means of clearing the land of
weeds; it is the chief support of sheep and cattle through the months of
winter; and it is one of the most valuable crops raised on British soil,
and of equal account in the agriculture of both England and Scotland.
The culture of turnips on farms involves considerable expense indeed,
and is sometimes attended with loss, and even failure; but they are of
inestimable value in cattle husbandry, as without them our sheepfarms
would soon be depopulated, and the animals hardly outlive a winter. One
function they, and the like, fulfil in nature, is turning inorganic
matter into vegetable, that the component elements may in this form be
more readily assimilated into animal flesh and blood; while their
introduction as an article of farming is of great importance as
rendering possible and feasible a regular rotation of crops.
4. But I must, as I said, hasten on to another ingredient of the dish we
are compounding; I refer to barley, for that too, as our gracious
hostess would say, is "_intilt_." From this single grain what virtues
have been developed! what mildness, what soothing, what nourishment, and
what strength! What a source it is to us of comfort, of enjoyment, and
of wealth! There is barley-water, for instance, a beverage most
harmless, yet most soothing; meet drink for the sick-room, and specially
promotive of the secretions in patients whose disease is inflammatory,
and who suffer from thirst. Then there is barley-bread, extensively used
in both England and Scotland, than which there is none more wholesome to
the blood and more nourishing to the system; the meal of which is of
service too in the shape of a medical appliance, and, when so used,
acts with most beneficial effect. But its strength is not so pronounced
or decisive either in the form of an infusion or in that of bread, much
as in these forms it contributes to health and vigour: it is not when it
is put into the pot, or when bruised by the miller, that it comes out in
the fulness of its might; it is when it is immersed in water, and
subjected to heat, and metamorphosed into malt. In this form it can be
converted into a beverage that is simple and healthful, and, when used
aright, conducive to strength of muscle and general vigour of life; but
when it has undergone a further process, which I am about to describe,
it evolves a spirit so masterful that the weak would do well to
withstand its seductiveness, for only a strong head and a stout will
dare with impunity to enter the lists with it, and can hope to retire
from the contest with the strength unshorn and a firm footstep.[C]
Whisky, which is what I now refer to as the highest outcome of the
strength of barley, is, like hodge-podge, of Scotch incubation, and
deserves, for country's sake and the fame it has, some brief regard. The
process by which the grain is prepared may be described as follows. The
grain is first damped, then spread out on a floor, and finally a certain
quantity of water and heat applied, when it begins to germinate, which
it continues to do to a certain stage, beyond which it is not allowed to
pass. At this moment a Government official presents himself, and exacts
a duty of the manufacturer for the production of the malt, the
authorities shrewdly judging that they are entitled to levy off so
valuable an article a modicum of tax. The grain thus prepared is now in
a state for further manufacture, and it passes into the hands of the
brewer or distiller, to be converted into a more or less alcoholic
drink.
First the brewer produces therefrom those excellent beverages called
beer and porter, and so contributes to our refreshment, enjoyment, and
strength. These beverages are, in one shape or other, nearly in
universal demand, and the money spent upon the consumption of Bass and
XX almost passes belief. They are exported into every zone of the
world, and consumed by every class. And then the distiller takes the
grain in the same form, and, by slow evaporation and subsequent
condensation, extracts the pure, subtle, and potent spirit we have
referred to, and which, in more or less diluted form, we call whisky, or
Scotch drink. And this article also, in spite of cautions, is in large
demand and extensively exported, though perhaps not so much is consumed
among us as was fifty years ago. It is not by any means so bad an
article as it has a bad name; for when of good quality, and moderately
indulged in, it is perfectly wholesome; only when the quality is bad, or
the indulgence excessive, do evil results follow. And indeed such are
its merits when good, that it is said dealers sometimes export it to
France and other parts, from which it is imported again to this country,
transfused into splendidly labelled brandy bottles, and sold
untransformed as best brandy!