The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-15

These figures, Vouched for by a trade
 authority, arc in turn explained by the
 retailer, who counts against that profit
 the expenses of his establishment outside
 that incident to handling the beef, which
 is allowed for in the original calculation.
 He points to the demands of sharp compe-
 tition, yet it is hard to find q retail meat
 dealer who will undersell the market. It
 is easy to find that when the wholesale
 price of beef goes up 1 cent the price of
 steak a roast will mount cents
 Yet there are many butchers and they
 are not all millonaires. In Washington
 for example, dressed beef is less than 1
 cent higher than it was a year ago, but roundsteak sells for IS cents instead of
 l5 cents a pound, as It did a year ago.
 The utilization of by-products in the
 slaughterng industry has been the great
 est boon to the meat consumer, as we'll
 as fortune builder for some prominent
 millionaires. In 1874, when New York
 was the great beef center and West AL
 bany the leading live stock market. good
 cattle sold for cents a pound on the hoot and the dressed beef for over 12
 ceats. Now, with cattle at l1a cents. the dressed beef is sold for |. The difference
 is made by the by-produets. Under the
 old regime the dressed beef today would
 have to be sold for cents to permit the
 packers to break even,
 In making every atom of a carcass
 count the scientific slaughter house has
 done many things to the average steer, and taken heavy tolls of him. It has boiled him. baked him, ground him. lique- fled him, filtered him. evaporated him, compressed him into tablets. run him into capsules and bottles, and has even placed him in the pharmacopeia All these things it has done in the utilization of the parts which for generations went to waste. The operations net the people who do 1t about $1 30 per steer. A prominent packer once told a delegation that if they would give him the by-products alone, not including the hide and the butter fat. he would slaughter their cattle and make money. Formerly the only by-products of the beef animal to which the dressed meat producer paid any attention were the hide, tallow and tongue. The remainder was sheer waste. When ingenuity saw | the opportunity. glue works. fertilizer fac | tories, soap-making establishments and oil and tallow factories sprang up along | the Hanks of the packing houses. Then | the packers took up this work themselves. In the olden days the lean meat trim l mings were thrown away. Now they are | treated and go into sausages. The hair | was thrown Into the scrap heat. Now 1t | is saved and goes at good price per ton. | The horns. at one time considered nuis- | ance, bring $250 per ton, and hoof" how l bring from S35 to sD per ton. Nothing is wasted That which Is good for nothing | else is good for fertilizer and parts of a steer may find its way back to the 1 very farm from whence 1t came to make grass grow in the place of that which | that very steer had eaten, thus complet- | ing the circle of matter in the practical world and proving the scientific fact that l in the economy of the universe nothing is l wasted.
 Some twenty years ago a number of | big cattlemen went to the late r. D. Armour and wanted him to agree to butcher for them on commission, instead of buying their beeves and butchering l them on his own account. claiming that | they did not get their share out of the transactions as they then stood. MT. | Armour replied that if they would give | him two dollars per head he would | butcher all their cattle and grow rich, giving them everything even down to | the offal. After Investigating the situa- l ton the cattlemen decided not to ae- cept his proposition
 The refrigerator car has done great 1 deal in cutting down the margin on dressed beef to the point where it is to- | day although responsible for fragrant transportation abuses When cattle were l selling at $I50 this year dressed beef was selling at about $6.90. Thirty years ago. when cattle were selling at S5 dressed beer | was s1O With the great western country as the source of supply for beef, along | in the seventies, Swift figured out that | the only way to protitably get beef into | the eastern market would be to put it | into refrigerator cars. These had been | invented some six years before, but had not been in successful use on a large Escale.