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CHAPTER VI 

 COLD STORAGE AND FOOD SPECULATION 



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The cold-storage warehouse and the refrigerator- 

 car are among the greatest devices of our age. With- 

 out these agencies our city population would be de- 

 pendent upon the immediate local supply, while 

 foods of distant lands would be unknown to most of 

 us. They place the perishable food of every clime 

 upon our tables all the year around. Even the 

 poorest dines on foods that were unknown to the 

 richest a century ago. The cold-storage warehouse 

 also tends to equahze prices throughout the year. 

 Eggs, butter, poultr}^, fish, and meat lose but little 

 in freshness from months of storage, while seasonal 

 products can be kept at a uniform price by reason 

 of these facilities. 



Yet, instead of being an agency of universal ser- 

 vice and a means of cheapening the price of food, 

 cold storage is one of the principal agencies of the 

 speculator. The cold-storage plant is a warehouse. 

 It offers easy facilities for a few men to buy up and 

 store foods and thus control the market. The 

 operators and owners are in close alliance with the 

 food exchanges, which fix quotations, and with the 

 packers, produce men, and jobbers in every large 

 city. There are seventy-five of these cold-storage 



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