The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-04-20

Canned Roast or Corned Beef Not Pm
 Upas q Luxury, but Declared to A ffort
 More Nutriment, Pound for Pound
 Than Fresh Becf-Process of Prescrv'
 ing Meat.
 The subject of canned beef is one that
 has for months been of great interest to
 millions of citizens of the United States
 but it is also one that is very little un-
 derstood outside of the great packing
 houses in which the work of canning ant
 preserving is done. Most of the canned
 meat furnished to the world comes from
 Chicago. In this city fully ninety per
 cent of the meat preserved and canned in the United States is turned out, The great firms of Armour & Co.,, Swift &
 Co.,, Nelson Morris S5 Go. and the An
 glo-American Packing Co.-commonly known as ''The Big Four''-transact the largest share of the business. In their Chicago plants alone something like thirty thousand men are employed con- stantly, and a fairly good idea of their transactions may be gained from few statistics.
 The annual product of the Chicago packing houses is, in round numbers, one hundred and fifty million dollars. They pay in wages fifteen million dol- Jars annually; the amount of capital in- vested in their plants is about twenty five million dollars; they receive, slaugh- ter and ship, either in ,carcasses or in cases, canned or preserved, S,5O0oo0 head of cattle annually, not to mention the mine million hogs, five hundred thousand calves and 2,500,0O0 sheep. The beef canning industry is not so very old. It was begun something like tWenty-tWo years ago by Armour & Co. on a very small scale. The firm had in view the saving of a large proportion of the meat which had been up to that time either unstable or of very little value. The business has grown to an enormous eX- tent, the firm having during 1898 con- sumed more than eighteen million pounds of meat in it's canning and pre- Eerving department. At least five thou- sand men are employed in this depart ment, and the list of articles now man. ufactured by the firm numbers in the neighborhood of two thousand, ranging all the way from soups, soap and ex- tracts of beef to pepsin.
 As the firm of Armour & Go, has been especially mentioned, chiefly because it is by far the largest of the packing firms, it will be used as the basis of in formation given in this article. It would be impossible in single article to describe anything like fair share of the y-products manufactured from beef. It may be said, however, that of he raN rT1n Armour plant in Chicago alone covers with it's buildings and grounds one hun- dred and fifty acres. Its cold-storage buildings and chill rooms occupy forty acres. As the residue of the product in 1898 the firm manufactured and turned out not less than 6500,000 pounds of glue, ten thousand tons of fertilizers grease, &c., and an enormous quantity (the figures are not obtainable) of bones hoofs and horns. Not a single pound of all this residue is lost. Everything, in fact, is utilized.
 A short visit to the great Armour plant can afford little information as to its extent, for weeks might be profitably spent in Investigating the methods en- ployed in canning and preserving meats. Through the courtesy of Arthur Meeker, who is the stock yards department man. ager for the firm of Armour & Co.,, representative of the Sun saw this week the entire working system of the great canning industry of Chicago, of which tlffs firm is the chief representative. But little informal ton could be gained from casual inspection, the explana tions of the expert being necessary to obtain even a fair idea.
 Beef canning as a process" said MT. Meeker lis almost exactly similar to that used in putting up corn, peas, as- paragus, tomatoes and like vegetables, salmon, sardines, lobster and other fish, and what is known as the Appert pro- cess, which was invented in 1909. It has been well known to scientific inquiry for the entire period since the date of it's invention, but it's commercial use has been limited to the past thirty years by | manufacturers and dealers in canned | meats. So far nothing has been discov ] cred that produces similar results, and | it would be difficult to supersede the | Appert process, as there never has been any complaint of the deterioration of | the contents of cans put up by this pro- cess. We have ourselves been engaged [ in the business of putting up canned | meats of different kinds for the past twenty-two years, and during that time we have averaged about fifteen million pounds per annum The first year we were engaged in this manufacture our output amounted to about one million pounds, and last year the canned goods of different kinds manufactured by us reached an aggregate of eighteen mill lion pounds.
 Tt should De understood that canned roast and canned corned beef are not put up as a luxury. If you go to butcher to buy steaks or roasts fresh from the block, you will find that you must pay all the way from twelve to twenty or even twenty-five cents a pound depending upon the quality of the meat and the cut. Our canned roast beef and our canned eorned beef are and put up to sell for an average of about six cents pound. No reasonable person could expect to get first -class choice cuts of beef at that price. As such meat is not luxury, it may be regarded in some instances as d nakeshift and others as'a necessity. It : Is used very much in logging camps, by { the> armies of Europe in mining locali- ties, and, in fact, it is designed for use where fresh meats are not readily ob- ;