62 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



is unwholesome or contains the germs of poison, thereby 

 being and becoming dangerous and destructive of health, 

 and sometimes of life itself. 



As it is so recently that the method of freighting to our 

 markets refrigerated beef, slaughtered in the West, has been 

 adopted, I may fairly assume that nearly all of my hearers 

 well remember the evils of the method first alluded to ; that 

 is, the freighting of live cattle to our markets. 



The cattle reached us exhausted, bruised, fevered, with all 

 the delicious flavor and most of the nutriment of the flesh 

 extracted by natural absorption, which is nature's method of 

 furnishing sustenance to the animal when outside nourish- 

 ment is withdrawn. 



Against this system the individual revolted, society re- 

 volted and the State revolted. 



The Legishitures of several States decreed that cattle 

 shippers should furnish food and water to the cattle while 

 being transported through the borders of the several States 

 so legislating. 



These laws turned the attention of the inventors to some 

 device for cattle transportation which would in the best and 

 cheapest way furnish food and water for the cattle. 



I well remember seeing, some dozen years ago, a car load 

 of fourteen Texas steers unloaded at Washington Square in 

 Worcester, which had been shipped from Chicago in Aldrich's 

 compartment cattle car. They had been fed and watered at 

 regular intervals throughout the journey. There was not a 

 chafe or bruise upon them. They had shrunk in weight not 

 exceeding twelve pounds to the steer, and when they found 

 themselves once more on terra firma they were as frisky as 

 when standing on their native turf. 



The success of the experiments was complete, for I may 

 add that I tasted the meat and found it as good as the best 

 home-fattened beef. 



Meanwhile these experiments were being made for feeding 

 cattle in transitu. Calculations were also being made and 

 experiments tried for slaughtering the cattle West and send- 

 ing the carcasses in a frozen condition. 



The expense of sending the cattle alive, and feeding and 

 watering them on the cars, was found to be greater than that 



