366 REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



Between the cooling-rooms and the platform where the refrig- 

 erator cars are drawn up ready to convey the dressed beef to its des- 

 tination is the shipping-room. The meat, after being quartered, is 

 here subjected to rigid inspection before shipment, so that none 

 showing any blemish shall pass into the car. These refrigerator cars 

 are nearly 30 feet long by 8 feet wide, with a space of over 7 feet 

 between the floor and the cross-bars on which the meat is to be hung, 

 and a further space of 14 inches between the cross-bars and the roof. 

 Thus, the hooks being placed sufficiently wide apart for this pur- 

 pose, air can freely pass all around the beef while in transit. Each 

 car will hold about 30 carcasses of selected beef, averaging 650 

 pounds each. The hind quarters are hung at one end of the car and 

 the fore quarters at the other. In the roof of the car there are four 

 or more galvanized-iron tanks, each capable of holding two tons of 

 ice. These are filled from the outside, through small hatchways, 

 with a mixture of pounded ice and coarse salt, which is renewed at 

 designated stations on the route as required. The tanks thus filled 

 create a temperature of from 36 to 38 F. in the closed car. The 

 air, as it comes in contact with the tanks, becomes chilled and de- 

 scends, displacing the lighter and warmer air, which naturally rises 

 and becomes in turn chilled, and thus a constant current of rarefied 

 air is maintained in the car, which keeps the meat in perfect condi- 

 tion, without its ever having been frozen or coming in direct contact 

 with ice. 



An impression of the extent of the dressed-beef trade of Chicago 

 can be gathered from a statement of the business done by the four 

 leading firms. During the year 1888 Armour & Co. slaughtered, 

 for dressed-beef and canning purposes, 561,000 cattle; Swift & Co., 

 for dressed beef exclusively, used 484,000 cattle; Nelson Morris and 

 the Fairbank Canning Company slaughtered 468,000 cattle; and the 

 Hammond Dressed Beef Company, &20,000 cattle. There are other 

 firms and companies engaged in the business of packing and canning 

 beef, but not on so broad a basis. The total business of Armour & 

 Co., last year, amounted to $55,000,000. 



The extensive scale upon which operations are carried on gives 

 value even to those parts of the animal heretofore regarded as worth- 

 less, when accumulated in such bulk. Nothing is wasted. The feet 

 and heads, the latter of which in past years were often buried on the 

 prairies, are converted into glue and fertilizers. The hoofs, horns, 

 bones, etc., are shipped East and made into knife-handles and various 

 kinds of ornaments. The blood drained from the slaughtered ani- 

 mals is caught and cooked and dried and pressed, and becomes a 

 valuable fertilizer. The skins of the intestines, properly cleaned, 

 form sausage-casings. The offal and refuse go to the fertilizer fac- 

 tory, and even the floor washings, collected in the sewers, yield wagon 

 grease. The hides, of course, are sold to the tanners, and form a 

 very valuable item. There have been occasions when hides were 

 worth 10 cents a pound, and beef only 5 cents a pound at wholesale. 

 The glue and fertilizer factory in which Armour & Co. utilize their 

 refuse products covers 11 acres, employs 500 men, and turned out, 

 in 1888, 6,000,000 pounds of glue, 14,000,000 pounds of fertilizers, and 

 4,000,000 pounds of grease. It is this concentration of force and 

 economy in handling which gives the large packers their advantage 

 and enables them to compete so successfully in the markets of the 

 world. 



