The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1883-12-12
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

Experts in chemistry have estimated
that the cost of London's winter smoke
and fog is s25, 600, 900 ANNUALLY; that IS
to say, constituents of coal to this value
escape unconsumed, and assist in forming
the sooty vapor.
The herring fisheries of Scotland em-
ploy nearly 500, 900 people, one-seventh
of the population. The boats represent
a money value of $4,000, 900. The
annual yield of cured fish has risen from
80. 900 barrels early in the century to
1880, 900, and has trebled in fifty years,
while in the same period the value of the
nets has increased se%vcnty-five per cent.
Mr.. Ryder, the ~embryologist of the
United States fish commission, has finally
solved the problem of the culture of oys-
tiers from artiticially impregnatcd eggs.
At Stockton, Nd, there are millions OF
young oysters about thrcc-quarters OF an
inch in diameter, which have been Matched
from eggs artiticially i%mpregnated forty
six days before. Hitherto the difficulty
of oyster culture lay in the fact that the
spat could not be retained, rs it floated
through even the finest fltering material.
The most profitable industry of the new
Swedish colony in Aroostook county,
Maine, is that of raising potatoes for the
starch factories, of which there are twenty
six. The largest of these made last year
392 tons of starch from 90, 600 bushels OF
potatoes. The process of starch making
is simple, consisting merely of grinding
the potatoes, washing the pulp, and set
Ting the-starch in three watts successfully
after it has been thoroughly washed with
clean water to remove all impurities.
Furnace heat is employed for drying.
The use of food substances-such as
meats, lcntils, peas, beans, etc, in a
dried and tinely-powdered form is said to
be attracting very favorable attention,
especially in France. In this form the
food is very nutritious, and is easily
digested and assimilated. 1t is stated to
have been tried with remarkable success
by consumptives and other persons hay
ing weak digcstions. The powder, of
which a few ~spoonfuls are equal to the
meal of u person with a healthy appetite,
may be kept in bottles for an indefinite
time, and may be taken with a little
milk, gravy, wine, water or other
liquid.
Prof. Clifford Richardson, ofthc United
States Department of Agriculture, has
completed ~two-ycars' task in the anal
ysis of nearly 2 200 specimens Of wheat
from various parts of the country, and
comparing them with each other and
with European wheat. He says the main
failing of our wheat is a deficiency in al
b%uminoids, which are regarded as the
most valuable portions of the grain.
Among our whcatsth highest percentage
of. albuminoids was II. Is. while a Rus
sian wheat from Minnesota contained
9 Sc per cent, twenty-four different spc-
cimens averaging 1913 per cent, the
lowest having 10.GS per cent. In the
east our wheat is the poorest, falling be-
low the general average in albuminoids
and ash and in the size of the grain. \
regular graduation Of improvement from
east to west is found until the Pacific
coast is reached, where there is a most
remarkable falling off in everything but
the size of grain. 1t is in the country
between the Mississippi and the noun
tains that the best grain is produced. The
middle west, represented by Michigan,
Kentucky and Tennessee, hold an inter
mediate position between this district and
that on the Atlantic coast. The latter
shows plainly that its soils have been
more or less worn out, the middle west
that it is losing it's fertility, and the far
west the fact that it contains those stores
of plant food, and nitrogen especially,
which makes a rich grain.