Within the last few years Miscanthus has been shown as the most productive perennial grass under different climate conditions, resulting suited for biomass production both in northern and in southern countries of Europe. Factors which may affect the final yield are soil texture, fertilization rate, water availability and harvest time. In particular many authors stressed the fact that a late harvest, in the winter season, allows to obtain a better biomass quality (i.e. low moisture level and reduced ash content), even if considerable biomass losses could occur, in form of leaves and tops, respect to the yields that could be obtained with an early harvest in autumn. On the other hand, early harvest poses the problem of high moisture levels, which makes the biomass unsuited for baling shortly after cut. Thus the biomass requires to be left on the field for drying for a time span, between mowing and baling, that can vary from few to several days, depending on air temperature and rain. Within the LogistEC EU project, a set of field trials were conducted in order to assess the feasibly of early harvesting under different climate conditions, in Italy, France and UK. In Italy, a three-passage harvesting system, consisting in mowing, windrowing and baling, was adopted for early harvest and compared with a conventional winter harvest, carried out with a single-passage system (mowing and baling in one operation) at the end of the winter. In both harvest systems tractor power, as well as machinery types for mowing and baling were the same. Productivity, fuel consumption and biomass losses were measured. Preliminary results showed that fuel and operation times needed for the three passage system were significantly higher than for the single-passage system, while biomass losses were slightly lower in the early harvesting than in the late winter harvest. Our results allowed to conclude that early harvest, with the three-passages system, can help to extend the harvesting season also to the autumn period, especially in those regions where seasonal air temperature allow to bale the biomass at proper moisture content, where the risk of wet winters is high, wherever cultivated areas are small and widespread within the single farm and in the case expected yields should be low.

The research investigates the fuel property variations associated with the time of harvest and the duration of storage of Miscanthus x giganteus over a one year period. The crop has been harvested at three different times: early (September 2009), conventional (April 2010) and late (June 2010). Once harvested the crop was baled and stored. Biomass properties of samples taken from different storage zones were compared. The thermochemical properties have been investigated using a range of analytical equipment including thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS). In addition, bio-oil has been produced from the early, conventional and late harvest using a laboratory scale (300 g h(-1)) fast pyrolysis unit. The potential organic liquid yield (on dry basis, also excluding the reaction water generated) based on the laboratory fast pyrolysis processing undertaken in this study, was found to vary between 2.82 and 3.18 dry t ha(-1) for the early and the late harvest respectively. The bio-oil organic yield was reduced by approximately 11% (0.36 t ha(-1)) between the early and the late harvest. Char yield was also reduced by approximately 18% (0.61 t ha(-1)). The highest gas yield (18.03%-1.60 t ha(-1)) was observed for the conventional harvest. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis of the bio-oil shows that levoglucosan, methylbenzaldehyde and 1,2-benzenediol all increase as a consequence of delayed harvest. It was also observed that by delaying the harvest time the O:C atomic ratio is reduced and a more carbonaceous feedstock is produced. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The research is concerned with thermochemical characterisation of straws and high yielding perennial grasses. Crops selected for this study include wheat straw (Triticum aestivum), rape straw (Brassica napus), reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea) and switch grass (Panicum virgatum). Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to examine the distribution of char and volatiles during pyrolysis up to 900 °C. Utilising multi-heating rate thermogravimetric data, the Friedman iso-conversional kinetic method was used to determine pyrolysis kinetic parameters. Light and medium volatile decomposition products were investigated using pyrolysis–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (Py–GC–MS) up to 520 °C. The 22 highest yielding identifiable cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin biomass markers were semi-quantified taking into consideration peak areas from GC chromatograms. Notable differences can be seen in butanedioic acid, dimethyl ester (hemicelluloses decomposition products), 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (lignin marker) and levoglucosan (intermediate pyrolytic decomposition product of cellulose) content when comparing perennial grasses with straw. From results presented in this study, perennial grasses such as switch grass, have the most attractive properties for fast pyrolysis processing. This is because of the observed high volatile yield content of 82.23%, heating value of 19.64 MJ/kg and the relatively low inorganic content.

The objectives of the experiment were to assess the impact of nitrogen (N) and potassium (K) fertiliser application on the cell wall composition and fast-pyrolysis conversion quality of the commercially cultivated hybrid Miscanthus x giganteus. Five different fertiliser treatments were applied to mature Miscanthus plants which were sampled at five intervals over a growing season. The different fertiliser treatments produced significant variation in concentrations of cell wall components and ash within the biomass and affected the composition and quality of the resulting fast-pyrolysis liquids. The results indicated that application of high rates of N fertiliser had a negative effect on feedstock quality for this conversion pathway: reducing the proportion of cell wall components and increasing accumulation of ash in the harvested biomass. No exclusive effect of potassium fertiliser was observed. The low-N fertiliser treatment produced high quality, low ash–high lignin biomass most suitable as a feedstock for thermo-chemical conversion.

This is an exceptionally interesting book which is a major contribution to the literature of the Oxford Movement, and much broader than its title suggests. Although the core of Pereiro’s book is a definition of ‘ethos’ and its importance for the Tractarians, the book also looks at a number of other aspects of Tractarianism and the relationship between Tractarians, Evangelicals and traditional high churchmen in the 1830s and 1840s. In his first chapter Pereiro introduces the reader to one of the lesserknown Tractarians, Samuel Francis Wood (1809–43), brother of the first Viscount Halifax and therefore uncle to one of the future leaders of the ritualist party in the Church of England. Wood was a friend or associate of most of the early Tractarians and his importance lies in his authorship of ‘The Revival of Primitive Doctrine’, a paper prepared for Newman in 1840 and the earliest known narrative of the early days of the Oxford Movement, uninfluenced by the furore that broke out over the publication of Newman’s Tract XC the following year. Pereiro publishes this document and some correspondence between Wood, Manning and Newman in two useful appendices. He argues in the text that Wood’s paper deals with two ideas essential to any understanding of Tractarianism, namely ‘ethos’, and the extent to which it was possible for the Church of England to move beyond the ‘primitive’ doctrines of the early Christian Fathers. In his second chapter Pereiro produces an exceptionally wellresearched and well-written analysis of the doctrinal differences between the Tractarians and other parties in the Church of England. He follows Nockles in making the links between Tractarianism and traditional high churchmanship and also in the distinctions he makes between their doctrinal positions. He argues that, in the light of future developments, Richard Hurrell Froude was perhaps the most ‘mainstream’ of the leading early Tractarians since it was impossible to equate Tractarian ideas of ‘ethos’ and ‘primitive’ doctrine with the Reformers of the sixteenth century. The Reformers had not revived primitive Christianity: they had gone beyond it in giving Scripture greater authority than tradition and had used Scripture to justify novel doctrines not to be found in the early Christian Fathers and, therefore, heretical. Pereiro challenges Peter Toon’s discussion of relations and doctrinal differences between Tractarians and Evangelicals in the late 1830s. He also challenges the view put forward by Arthur Burns, Jeremy Gregory and others that the late eighteenthand early nineteenth-century Church of England was spiritually alive, adducing evidence from people like Charles Daubeny to suggest that some Book reviews

This is a very interesting and unusual book in which two leading historians of leisure, one American, the other British, look at certain aspects of comparison between their respective countries. The first two-thirds of the book are perhaps the most successful. These compare the development of Blackpool with that of Coney Island. Both were the leading popular resorts of their day and the comparisons are not too difficult to make. Indeed, in many ways the two resorts had remarkably similar histories in the early twentieth century. The difference between them arose after the Second World War, when Blackpool proved capable of reinventing itself for a new generation in a way that Coney Island did not. This raises a number of interesting questions which the book does not really explore—notably the extent to which Blackpool and Coney Island were typical of the seaside resorts in their respective countries. Certainly in Britain, Blackpool was not typical in bucking the trend of British seaside resorts in general after the Second World War. For every one resort which, like Blackpool, managed to reinvent itself, there were probably at least two others, such as Southend and Southsea, which did not. Was the decline of Coney Island paralleled elsewhere in the United States or were there examples of American seaside resorts which emulated Blackpool? A greater degree of contextualisation would have helped the comparison between Blackpool and Coney Island, though the detailed comparison itself is exceptionally well done.

This paper investigates four reference fuels and three low lignin Lolium Festuca grasses which were subjected to pyrolysis to produce pyrolysis oils. The oils were analysed to determine their quality and stability, enabling the identification of feedstock traits which affect oil stability. Two washed feedstocks were also subjected to pyrolysis to investigate whether washing can enhance pyrolysis oil quality. It was found that the mineral matter had the dominate effect on pyrolysis in compared to lignin content, in terms of pyrolysis yields for organics, char and gases. However the higher molecular weight compounds present in the pyrolysis oil are due to the lignin derived compounds as determined by results of GPC and liquid-GC/MS. The light organic fraction also increased in yield, but reduced in water content as metals increased at the expense of the lignin content. It was found that the fresh oil and aged oil had different compound intensities/concentrations, which is due to a large number of reactions occurring when the oil is aged day by day. These findings agree with previous reports which suggest that a large amount of re-polymerisation occurs as levoglucosan yields increase during the aging progress, while hydroxyacetaldehyde decrease. In summary the paper reports a window for producing a more stable pyrolysis oil by the use of energy crops, and also show that washing of biomass can improve oil quality and stability for high ash feedstocks, but less so for the energy crops.

In the last thirty years there has been quite a revolution in Irish ecclesiastical historiography. It started with the revisionist approach to Irish Roman Catholic history in the work of Sean J. Connolly, Patrick J. Corish, Donal A. Kerr, and others, and more recently has included some excellent new studies of Irish Presbyterianism—though unfortunately, as yet, very little new on the history of the pre-disestablishment Church of Ireland. Andrew R. Holmes's book is an excellent contribution to this revisionist historiography and has clearly been influenced by Connolly's approach to Irish Roman Catholic history in Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780–1845 (1982). Holmes's concerns are not primarily with the political implications of religious association but with the internal structures and disciplines of Irish Presbyterianism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which he rightly sees as the formative period in modern Irish religious history, the one in which the sectarian divides that bedevilled Ireland for the next 150 years, and which are only just beginning to be resolved, began to be developed. Crucial to this development was the, comparatively late, Evangelicalization of the main Presbyterian group in Ireland, the Synod of Ulster, which took place largely through the efforts of Henry Cooke.