144 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



to Chicago to be slaughtered, and then probably shipped right back 

 over the same road again to consumers. In other words, the spread 

 between what the farmer gets for his livestock and what the con- 

 sumer pays is entirely too large in this country; it is out of all 

 proportion to the spread in other countries. The local farmer in 

 Saxony or in Switzerland leads his bullock to the public abattoir 

 maintained by the government, with a government inspector. He 

 may sell the carcass to the butcher, or use it himself. 



Moreover, we have a tremendous waste in our way of buying 

 meat. The consumer is partly responsible for this. We go to 

 the telephone and order a five-cent soup bone and want it sent 

 out immediately; let our bills run thirty or sixty days, and maybe 

 don't pay them at all. The butcher pays spot cash to the farmer 

 for the animals, and thus it takes a good deal of capital to run 

 his business. Moreover, we demand high-priced cuts. "We demand 

 sirloin and tenderloin, and all that sort of thing, and the neck 

 and trimmings are a drug on the market. In Europe the house- 

 wife either goes personally or sends a servant to buy the meat, 

 and they buy a great many of these cheap cuts — some good cuts — ■ 

 and pay spot cash, and carry them home themselves ; and thus the 

 expense of handling is a great deal less. Whether or not there is 

 a meat trust in the country; whether the packers are getting more 

 out of this than they ought to get; whether there is an undue 

 amount of profit made here and there — there are certainly too 

 many profits in this business, and the stock is moved back and 

 forth and there is a tremendous amount of expense. 



The cotton boll-weevil is threatening to destroy the cotton busi- 

 ness in the south, and the government and the state agricultural 

 colleges in the south have men scattered all over the country, trying 

 to induce people to go into the livestock business, and Louisiana 

 is becoming one of the great corn-producing states of the Union. 

 But how can the south go into the livestock business, when their 

 nearest market for their cattle is St. Louis or Chicago, and when 

 the equivalent of that must be shipped back to those people to eat? 



Whether there is anything wrong about it, it is uneconomical, 

 and, without blaming anybody, it is unbusinesslike ; and we will 

 have to get down to brass tacks and stop this waste before we will 

 get into a position where the consumer can pay the price necessary 

 to enable the farmer to make a reasonable profit on his livestock. 

 The whole thing could be laid bare by a systematic investigation — 

 dispassionate — without prejudice to anybody. 



