52 THE WORLD'S MEAT FUTURE 



"The number and distribution of these works is such that 

 scarcely any farmer in the Dominion can have a fat beast 

 ready any day. or a thousand of them, without a freezing house 

 fairly close by to take them olf his hands immediately, and a 

 steamer to carry them to London within a week or two. Tt 



comes Avonderfully near to that ideal condition for the grazier 



"not a blade of grass wasted." It is very remarkable that so 

 very far away from the centresi of consumption, and for a 

 perishable article, such a favourable position should have been 

 attained by the New Zealand grazier, through means of the 

 refrigerating process. Since the inception of that process, 

 this favourable position has ahviays been present in New Zealand, 

 first latent as it were, and for the last thirty years gradually 

 materialising with the advance of the country and the general 

 progress of the frozen meat trade. It is based primarily upon 

 one thing — the suitability of the country in soil and climate to 

 grow English pasture grasses. 



"The writer was once in the comi)any of several men high 

 up in English public life. The subject of New Zealand came 

 up, and one of them asked abruptly: "What is the chief among 

 the resources of your country? Is it g'old or timber, or what?" 

 The Ma^iter replied promptly: "It is English grass." The 

 looks that focussed upon him indicated both surprise and doubt 

 of his mental condition. But he had a first-class opportunity 

 to explain the singular adaptability of the country to grow these 

 pasture grasses, and produce just the class of meat wanted in 

 England, and the excellent returns which the cultivation of 

 these pastures yielded to the sheep farmer, as well as the leading 

 share they had borne in the advancement of New Zealand. 



"Well, these forty-one works have a 'killing capacity' of 

 130,300 sheep and 3590 cattle per day ! How full a provision 

 this is for the country's requirements will be understood when 

 it is noted that were the full "killing capacity" put in operation 

 for anything distantly approaching to full time, say, 250 days in 

 the year, it would suffice to put through the killing rooms 

 32,575,000 sheep and lambs, and 897,500 cattle, or about one-third 

 more of the former than there were sheep alive in the Dominion 

 (24,830,328) in 1916, along with three-fourths of the number 

 of cattle alive at the present time, outside the dairy herds of 

 three-quarters of a million cows. Again, the storage space 

 provided at the works is poual to 4.647.000 sheep of 60 lbs. each, 

 or equal to about two-thirds of the year's export of sheep and 



