164 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



ers are making in securing control of the situation down there in 

 Argentina, where they are increasing their feeding grounds, where 

 they are raising more stock and getting more intelligent all the 

 time, and also feeding their stock for the English market, it would 

 lay us open to an opportunity for these packers, after they have 

 acquired a foothold down there and a control, to play hoth ends 

 against the middle. They could have the United States, they 

 could have South America, and they could continue as they do at 

 the present time, to have their own sweet way ahout it. 



Mr. Ryan: I would like to ask Mr. Downing if it is not a 

 fact that the packers not only control the majority of the packing 

 plants in Argentina, but that they raise their own cattle and have 

 their own ranches'? 



Mr. Downing: They do to a certain extent; how great, I am 

 not prepared to say; but they do have their own ranches and raise 

 their own cattle and have their own packing plants, and I think 

 they have some of their own boats on rivers that are navigable; 

 so that they have their transportation facilities. It is quite nat- 

 ural to assume that men who come down there after anything of 

 that kind in the way of control of a market would have everything 

 that goes with it — have all the necessary facilities for carrying out 

 their plans; and their plants are the best equipped plants down 

 there. Their methods of refrigeration and everything else tend 

 to show that they are a little ahead of the procession in all their 

 movements, and the papers of that country speak quite highly of 

 the progress that is being made there in the industry of chilled 

 beef. "When the packers went down there, a great deal of the beef 

 sent to England was frozen. Frozen beef doesn't thaw out in com- 

 petition with chilled beef; it doesn't have the color; and chilling 

 is at present the best method of preservation. The American pack- 

 ers down there seem to have a little the best method of chilling and 

 handling, and the fact that they have also just completed a con- 

 tract with nineteen steamers for their capacity for transport- 

 ing beef to England would indicate that they have still larger 

 plans for the future. 



President Sykes : This is a very interesting discussion, but it is 

 already getting late, and we have another very important number 

 on our program; so I think we will have to close this discussion 

 at this time. The next man is one whom we all love to have with 

 us, and perhaps this is the time that he will say good-bye to us — 

 at least for the next four years. Anybody who heard him talk 



