The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1899-08-30
Killing Cattle for This Market.

Tho New York Retail Butchers Associa-
tion talks Of doing its own Strengthening
instead OF buying chilled meats from COM
panies in Chicago and further West. In
other words, it is proposed to re-establsh
here, on large SCALE the business OF
butchering for the local markets.
We all welcome new business enterprises
that benefit our consumers and give more
work to our people. Any local industry
that meets a necessity OF our citizens
and is favored by the natural conditions
which promote success has good reason
for existence. But is it not question
whether the circumstances that have given
the West n marked ascendancy in the meat
packing industry, and particularly in the
dressed-beef branch of it, are not as pot ent
now as ever; and will they not operate
against the successful transfer Of slauGh-
tering to this or other great centres OF
Eastern consumption?
Meat-packing in the East, to be sure, Is
no small industry. There are fifty or sixty
establishments between Buffalo and our
northeast coast that kill altogether about
one-half as many hogs as are killed in
Chicago and about third more than by
hdlSuS wy DulCucTS. lHt EdSUtTn caItle-
Strengthening industry is also large though
its volume is not third as great as that OF
the four big Western packing centres,
Chicago, Kansas City, ST. Louis and Omaha
Twenty-Five years ago the West was kill
ing only about an eighth as many sheep as
were sent alive to the Eastern markets but
now the dressed mutton carcasses OF the
West about equal in number the receipts OF
sheep at seaboard cities. 1t il not twenty-five
years since all the fresh meat consumed in
the East was received alive at Eastern
abattors. 1t is certainly not without reason
that the business has been revolutionized,
and that to-day most Of the Strengthening
is done in the West
large partof the animals sent East were
brought 1000 to /, 800 miles. The devel-
opment OF the Western packing trade was
due partly to the discovery that slaughter
ing might be done most economically near
the regions where the animals are raised
There is no reason why Kansas City and
Omaha should have n place among
the four largest packing centres, except
that it was found to be cheaper and
better to slaughter In those cities tho live
stock OF the great corn and grazing regions
naturally tributary to them. The very men
who were developing the vast meat inter
ests OF Chicago were foremost in starting
the same Industries in Kansas City and
/ Omaha because they knew that long and
tiresomc railroad Journeys are not good for
stock and particularly for cattle. So
slauGhtering plants were started hundreds
Of miles west OF Chicago, tho chief centre OF
| the business
But another fact has contributed far more
to the growth OF the Western meat indus
| try at the expense OF the East. This is the
| development Of the dressed-meat trade,
which scarcely existed twenty years ago.
| 1t was not till refrigerator cars were
| invented and improved that dressed beef
became one Of the greatest features of the
! packing trade. The beef thus preserved
is not frozen, but merely chilled, and it's
quality Is not impaired. The Germans
have tried both frozen anil refrigerated
meats and there Is practically no market
now in Germany for the frozen Australian