376 LIVE-STOCK AND MEAT INDUSTRY 



inside; 1 squeezing beef; 1 pumping kidneys; 3 long brush washers; 

 1 washing rags; 2 wiping hinds; 2 ladder men (knife) ; 2 bruise trim- 

 mere; 1 cutting off cords and shanks; 1 tying veins; 2 trimming 

 skirts and necks; 1 pumping necks; Weighing beef and helpers as 

 follows: 1 sealer; 1 grader; 1 pushing on scale or tagger; 1 pulling off 

 scale; 1 elevator man; Refrigerating and car loading as follows: 

 14 beef coolers; 5 trimmers; 7 carriers and loaders; 11 laborers. 

 Such division of labor means that highly skilled workers are 

 put on specialized jobs, and cheaper and less skilled labor is em- 

 ployed on the simpler jobs. In this way the utmost economy of 

 tune and effort is secured. 



(2) Utilization of By-products. It is literally true that no 

 part of the animal entering the large packing house is wasted. 

 The blood that falls on the floor passes down a chute and goes 

 into fertilizer. During the World War blood was also made into 

 albumen which was in turn used in the manufacture of airplanes. 

 Hair, hide, bones, all are utilized. Liver, sweetbread, brains, 

 tongue, heart, tail all find their way into human foodstuffs. 

 Buttons, knife handles, glue, gelatin, soap, curled hair, brewers' 

 isinglass, sandpaper, music strings, combs, artificial teeth, pipe 

 stems these and many other commercial articles are by-products 

 of the packing house. One of the large Chicago packers makes 

 the statement that his company sells the dressed meat from a 

 steer for less than the live animal cost on the hoof. Thus, as a 

 typical example, a 1,000-pound steer was bought by this packer 

 in September, 1918, for $160.00, and from it 565 pounds of dressed 

 beef were obtained. This beef was sold at wholesale for $141.25. 

 The hide sold for $15.75 a total for the beef and hide of $157 or 

 three dollars less than the cost of the live animal. The cost of 

 slaughtering, dressing, and distributing was $5.79 more, or a total 

 deficit of $8.79. The by-products of this steer in addition to the 

 hide, however, amounted to $9.77, leaving a profit of 98 cents on 

 the animal. The by-product business is one feature of the large- 

 scale production, and means, in the case of the packers, the fruits 

 of much experimentation, the development of private laboratories, 

 and the work of scientists. This is particularly true of the chemical 

 and medical preparations developed in the packing houses, such as 

 pancreatin, thyroids, supra-renal, pineal substance, thrombo- 

 plastin, and so on. Practically all these by-products are entirely 

 wasted in the small packing houses. 



(3) Transportation and Distribution. The large packers own 

 their own refrigerator cars and have volume enough of business 



