The evening times., 1899-04-22
FROZEN MUTTON.
Enormous Growth of the Busine.s
In Argentina and Australia.

lfrom the New York SUM
1t is nineteen years since the first ship
load of frozen mutton was dispatched from
Melbourne. The trade in refrigerated meat
was at first very slow in developing. In
1888 only S11 900 worth of sheep carcasses
were sent across the sea from Argentina.
1t was not till about ten years ago that
the business began to take on very large
proportions. Today New Zealand has its
freezing works at Auckland, Wellington
and elsewhere. and every year over S. .Oo0,-
600 worth of fish, beef mutton and lamb
are frozen solid sewed in canvas, stored in
the cold chambers Of ships built for the
trade and sent to markets I'm Polynesia and
Europe. In 1890 New South Wales ex-
portatiOn OF sheep carcasses was only 20O-
600. but it has steadily increased. and in
1896 it reached the large figure of 1000, 600
carcasses. averaging fifty-six pounds 1t
costs cents pound to kill freeze ship
and sell the mutton in London. and among
the other places of large shipment are
Manchester. South Africa. and Malta
Queensland is the only Australian colony
that exports beef in any quantity. New
Zealand now has the most extensive meat
freezing works in Australasia. They are
at Auckland. Wellington, and elsewhere.
and in 1896 they froze 1852. .535 Sleeps car
cases. Until 1877 the only country send
ing fresh meat to the United Kingdom was
Holland but today by far the larger part
Of the fresh meat imports come from Aus
tralia, New Zealand. and the River La
Plata.
Argentina at last leads New South Wales
and New Zealand = the exports of frozen
mutton and lamb. She has need for a large
export trade, for her newspapers say she is
now producing annually an immense guam
tity Of meat that her people cannot possibly
consume. This enormous surplus has nat
urally brought about the establishment of
large meat refrigeratIng plants. and one
of the four in Buenos Ayres, that owned by
the Sansiena Company. has facilities for
killing, dressing. freezing. and sending out
$500 sheep day and is the largest plant
Of the sort in the world. Before the era
of refrigeration it was impossible to trans
port meat long distances. and much less to
carry it across the tropics to Europe. In
those days we used to hear chiefly of the
beef extracts prepared from Argentine and
Uruguay cattle. But now Argentina alone
is exporting about 2,50O.O00 frozen car
casses Of sheep year. The processes en-
ployed are practically the same as in New
Zealand, and, as in our own slaughtering
centres. nothing is allowed to go to waste.
Cold storage is one of the great modern
triumphs in transportation. South Africa
is able to profit by 1t to get summer-made
butter all the year round. 1t is winter in
Denmark when summer reigns in Aus
tralia, and so when 1t is the grass season
in Australia a good deal of South Africa's
butter comes from that quarter of the
earth, and when the grass is sere and yell
low in the dairy districts of Australia tire
butter of Denmark begins to arrive. Eng
land buys from Denmark nearly $3o, zoe COO
worth CT butter year, and, though the
distance is short. moreaand more of it is
being sent in cold storage. Cold storage
does not create wealth, hut 1t keeps wea- th
from becoming loss.iiit lengthens the
marketing period, for unless butter. straw