Types and Market Classes of Live Stock 83 



cattle to Baltimore and disposed of them at a profit. ^ This gave a 

 great impetus to the western cattle business of that time and afforded 

 a means of marketing corn. Droves of 150 to 500 cattle, mostly four- 

 or five-year-old steers, were fattened on corn and driven overland in 

 spring and summer. From 1840 to 1850 Ohio and Kentucky supplied 

 most of the corn-fed cattle on eastern markets. ^ 



One route from Kentucky to New York City covered about 800 

 miles and required over ten weeks to complete it. Drives to the eastern 

 seaboard were made from as far west as Iowa, and even Texas cattle 

 passed eastward in this manner. Sheep were driven across country 

 also, notably from Vermont to Virginia. Large numbers of hogs were 

 driven to market, but they were a more active type than the modern 

 fat hog. By 1860, few hogs were driven any considerable distance. ' 

 Today we do not even drive hogs from the farm to the shipping point, 

 but haul them in wagons. 



The advent of transportation by rail * marked a decided turning 

 point in the live-stock industry and the live-stock markets. Western 

 cattle were then sold on eastern markets throughout the year. Pro- 

 ducers of grass-fattened cattle in the East could not compete with them, 

 and Ohio feeding also declined in competition with the cheaper grass 

 cattle of Illinois. By 1860 the railroads extended west of the Mis- 

 sissippi, and central Illinois and eastern Iowa became a great cattle 

 feeding district. Then came the development of the range cattle 

 industry of the Great Plains from 1870 to 1885, reaching its maximum 

 development between 1890 and 1900. 



Development of large markets. — As long as markets were simply 

 the scene of barter in live animals for local use, no large markets were 

 developed. About 1820 pork packing was begun, and this furnished 

 the first impetus to the creation of large markets of more than mere 

 local importance. Pork could be pickled, salted, and smoked, and the 

 fat rendered into lard, and the products thus produced could be shipped 

 to distant points. As these products met with good demand, pork 

 packing was the natural beginning of a vast meat-manufacturing busi- 

 ness, tending to centralize the hog markets, and much increase them in 

 size. So far as cattle were concerned, however, the development was 

 not parallel. Outside of an article known as "barreled beef," which 

 was put down in salt, packers had found no method of handling 

 beef as they did hogs. Not until the era of the refrigerator 

 car, beginning in 1875, were cattle of much interest to packers. 



lAlvin H. Sanders: Shorthorn Cattle, 1900, p. 192. 

 2U. S. Dept. Agr. Yearbook, 1921, p. 233. 



3 Frank Andrews: Cost and Methods of Transporting Meat Animals, U. S. 

 Dept. Agr. Yearbook, 1908, p. 228. 



*V. S. Dept. Agr. Yearbook, 1921, pp. 234-238. 



