406 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



to take was the beef, and they have taken to the limit of the space 

 upon these British boats each week, because they needed it for the 

 armies and the markets of the allies, and that space is all engaged for 

 months ahead. Of the two British boats that we were on, one of them 

 bad a capacity of 10,000 carcasses, and the other of 12,000, and it was 

 practically all the space they had, and those boats would go back loaded 

 to the limit. They have their refrigeration so perfected that the chief 

 engineer assured me that they could carry the meat from the time they 

 loaded it on the docks in Buenos Aires until they landed in London or 

 Liverpool, without a variation of half a degree in temperature in the 

 big refrigerators; consequently it arrive3 there in prime condition. 



While I do not think it is quite the equal of our prime corn-fed beef, 

 yet it has a good reputation upon the British markets, and it sells 

 well, and the people who produce it think it is fully as good as the best 

 corn-fed beef. 



They have some peculiar customs down there in regard to eating beef. 

 One is that practically all the beef that is consumed in any of the mar- 

 kets In the Argentine or other countries will be killed and put on the 

 table or sold over the block to the consumer the same day it is killed, 

 or the next day. Hardly any of it is kept for more than twenty-four 

 hours. They have become accustomed to eating that kind of beef, and 

 seem to prefer it' to any other. But of course the beef that they export 

 is killed and handled in the coolers and chilled and put in these ocean 

 refrigerators, and goes upon the market in about the same condition 

 that our dressed beef does when leaving our packing houses. 



Then, aside fromi the Argentine, we have conditions up in Brazil, 

 where our friend, Murdo Mackenzie, is located, managing probably the 

 largest estanchio anywhere in South America, and perhaps the largest 

 cattle estanchio in the world. Conditions there are quite essentially 

 different from those in the Argentine, but are nevertheless capable of 

 producing a good deal of beef. Brazil has not figured much in the 

 world's beef supply until recently; in fact, they have no packing houses 

 and no facilities for marketing it, and they have been simply shipping 

 out the hides and selling tallow and shark or jerked beef, as they call 

 it, and the product was not being utilized to good advantage. They 

 have there, naturally, more nearly tropical conditions, and ideal graz- 

 ing, but of different grasses, and without any alfalfa, as that does not 

 grow there. They have other rich, productive grasses, however, a 

 very well watered country, and generally favorable conditions, except 

 that the climate is too warm, and they have a good many things to con- 

 tend with there in the way of insect enemies and pests that are even 

 worse than the tick. They have the fever tick, similar to our southern 

 states, but Mr. Mackenzie said that even though they have cattle come 

 from this country that have been through the disease, they are not im- 

 mune when they get there, but take it again sometimes. But that is not 

 their greatest difficulty. I think the cattle men generally concede that 

 the tick is less injurious and detrimental to their business than the in- 

 sect enemies and pests, and the flies that they have at certain seasons 

 of the year. 



