Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1886-02-19
CLOSE OF THE SEASON.

CLOSE OF THE SEASON.
The Yankton Pork Packing House Prepar.
ing to suspend Operations-some Facts
About Hogs and Hog Products.
In the course of u week the Yanktou
pork packing house will suspend opera,
tions for the season. One more batch OF
swine will be butchered and the meat
prepared for the market and then this
extensive establishment will rest until
another coming of cold weather. The
killing season has been much short
ened by the scarcity of hogs and
in closing, the Yankton house
is but following the enforced
example of other western houses. The
Sioux City packing concern suspended
operations two weeks ago, giving as a
reason the scarcity OF hogs and the low
price OF the product. Like reasons oper-
ate in Yankton. The packing company
has exhausted the supply, both by
wagon and by rail, and must therefore
await the advent of another crop. The
house has killed, cut up, cured aud sold
ten thousand hogs during the winter
and has shipped & hundred car loads of
product to the eastern market. Upon
its seasons work it has made a good
profit, though its earnings are not rs
large as is popularity supposed. The
company is satisfied with the result and
has frmer faith than ever in the busl-
ness.
This satisfactory outcome is attributed
largely to the excellence of the swine
product in the region tributary to Yank-
ton. With the opening OF the season
the condition of th e eastern market was
favorable, but later there was a marked
falling off in the foreign demand for
American pork. This depressed the
market for cured meats, but did not
bring a corresponding depression in the
price of the raw material. The scarcity
of hogs all over the west, in consequence
of the ravages of hog cholera,
rendered the packers anxious to
secure the largest possible immediate
supply and this maintained a fictitious
value which cut down profits. The
excellent quality of the Yankton made
pork gave it favor on the market, thus
creating @ demand which enabled our
packers to secure larger prices than the
general market would sustain. The
Yankton company has a letter from the
official pork inspector In Chicago, COM
%plimenting the house OF its product
and giving to it o high rec 3mmendation.
While the general hog crop of the
west has been shortened by the ravages
of disease, it was not so light as was an
tiuipated. In many localities pro.
ducers have been selling everything they
possessed in the shape of a hog. The
Kansas City record shows that at the
close of one days operations there were
in stock over a Thousand swine which
weighed less than u hundred pounds
each. Nc such result has been encoun
tered in Yankton, the hogs offered being
uniformly of excellent quality and heavy
weight, The general average throughout
the country shows, however. that each
hog marketed at the eastern pork CEN
ters has been twenty-slx pounds lighter
than the average of past years. AS this
particular section has Kept up to the
standard average of the past, demand
for its pork is q natural
one. Sales have been easy, the pref.
erence drawing from the Yankton house
all it could secure as fast as the meat
could be made ready to ship. All pur-
chases have been made by telegraph,
delivery on the cars at this station, SO it
has not been necessary to follow the
| product to the market and put it upon
indifferent buyers. When the epidemic
season has passed and this section Of the
west is producing its full complement of
swine, the Yankton packing house will
take rank with the best and ifs opera
tions will increase tenfoId. Just now it
is forced into idleness by the exhaus.
ton of the raw material.