|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 32
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.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|