SUBSTANCES USED AS FOOD.
INTRODUCTION.
Most of the objects exhibited in this Class are so familiar as to require little preliminary notice. Substancesused as food are derived either from the animal or from the vegetable kingdom, and may, consequently, bearranged under these two divisions—Animal and Vegetable. The latter are necessarily the most varied andthe most important. Vegetable substances used as food may be arranged under the following heads: —A. Agricultural produce, such as cereals, pulses, oils, seeds, &c.; B. Dried fruits and seeds; 0. Substancesused in the preparation of drinks ; D. Intoxicating drugs, fermented liquors, &c. ; E. Spices and condiments ;F. Substances belonging to the starch; and G. Substances belonging to the sugar series. Preserved meats,soups, honey, gelatine, &c., belong to the subdivision of animal substances.
This Class is situated in South Gallery P, and is entered immediately on leaving the preceding Class,situated in the same gallery. Like the last, the amount of space occupied by it is very moderate, but the sub-stances it comprises are interesting, and deserve attention, not, as in the last case, from their connection withcommercial enterprise and prosperity, but from their relation to the support and healthy condition of theartificer himself.
The Class comprises a variety of agricultural produce—wheats of various kinds and of differing degrees ofproductiveness, together with specimens illustrative of the remarkable effect of hybridization, or the crossing ofone variety of wheat with the pollen of another. Wheat is also shown in its various states of preparation forthe purposes of food, or for the preparation of fermented liquors. Extensive collections of seeds of grasses,fodder-plants, and others for cattle food, are also exhibited, together with an arranged series of the vegetableproductions of Scotland , including plants cultivated for their farinaceous seeds ; plants cultivated for theirherbage or forage, for their roots, for their uses in the arts, manufactures, &c., for their medicinal properties,and for their timber. Preserved fruits and seeds of various countries are also contained within this Class, repre-senting those articles of luxury removed by their character and costliness out of the ordinary category ofhuman food. Specimens of hops of different varieties, adapted for different purposes, are also shown, and repre-sent a department of agriculture more important in this country than in any other in the world. It has beenestimated that upwards of 52,000 acres of land are devoted in England to the cultivation of this plant, aboutthe half of which is in the county of Kent. The duty on hops amounts to about a quarter of a million sterlingannually. __ ^
A variety of substances used in the preparation of drinks is comprised in this Class, Specimens of differentkinds of cocoas, in the natural and manufactured state, of coffee, and of tea, represent the ingredients con-tributing to form the liquid diet of millions of the human race,. and each containing, according to recentdiscoveries, a peculiar nitrogenous principle, identically similar in each, though recognised under differentnames. New substances are also shown, intended to form substitutes for these articles. Starches, spices, andcondiments represent the remaining division of vegetable substances.
The division—animal substances—includes a variety of articles of preserved food; among these are cases con-taining food preserved in air-exhausted canisters for lengthened periods. Isinglass, gelatine, honey, preservedsoups and meats, belong also to this division. There are also some preparations from blood, and combinationsof vegetable and animal substances for the purposes of food, together with milk reduced by evaporation to adried state.—R. E.
1 Lichton James, Frampton, near Boston, Lincolnshire —
Producer.
Glass of honey, 19 lbs., produced under an improvedsystem of bee management.
The honey is worked in the glass by the bees, and theglass requires no protection except a small piece of blackcalico, 18 inches square, to stand upon.
2 Doubleday, H., Coggeshall, Essex —Producer.
Fine specimen of honeycomb.
4 Bentley, John Flowers, Stamford, Lincoln —•Producer.
Specimens of honey in the comb, free from pollen andbrood cells, collected under Nutts’ system of manage-ment, by ventilation. The weight of the produce of onestock of bees in 1819 is stated to have been 50 lbs.