226 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



were wont to take a hand in a real estate game with 

 a packer's dream of stockyards,, abattoirs and packing- 

 houses. A few of such schemes materialized suffi- 

 ciently to leave a few ruins of foundation walls on 

 the rural landscape, but there was never much money 

 either gained or lost by such enterprises. More 

 recently free investment and real development was 

 undertaken in a business-like way and San Francisco 

 and Los Angeles began to have something different 

 from the wholesale butchers of pioneer days and from 

 the old style of buying meat animals and retailing of 

 meat products. The great packers of the country 

 have apparently arrived at a more adequate con- 

 ception of the geographical and commercial rela- 

 tions of California to the meat production of this 

 coast and the meat trade of the new world of the 

 Pacific. They proposed to enroll the coast produc- 

 tion of animals, and the product trade from the 

 terminals and ports of California, in their enlarged 

 scheme of economic world conquest through inter- 

 national trade. In this way California now has 

 share in the national interest of stock-growing and 

 product packing and a share also in the great national 

 problems of how to make the packers best serve the 

 public interest now pending solution. 



In a general way, the promise in beef production 

 in California must be considered good. Although 

 shipments are made to great packing points, it is 

 currently stated that about half the animals slaugh- 

 tered are brought from beyond state lines. There 

 is plenty of land available for stock ranging that 



