URUGUAY 115 



There is room for greater development, because, with all that 

 has been accomplished, the limit of economic productivity is a 

 long way from being reached. With the steadily increasing 

 demand for meat and meat products in all the consuming mar- 

 kets of the world, with the Avell-known adaptability of the 

 people of Uruguay for agricultural and pastoral life, with the 

 encouraging tendency to aid immigration to the country, and 

 the facility with which new settlers are absorbed into the popu- 

 lation, Uruguay takes a favoured place among the cattle 

 countries of America, 



An Uruguayan law of 8th January, 1916, extends for five 

 years the period during which building material and machinery 

 for the construction of meat-packing establishments are to be 

 admitted free of duty into Uruguay. The exemption from 

 duty by such articles was previously authorised for a period 

 of five years by a law of 13th July, 1911. 



The first freezing plant in Uruguay was the Frigorifico 

 Uruguaya, established at Montevideo. It has a present daily 

 capacity of 1200 steers and 4000 sheep. In 1911 Swift bought 

 three jerked beef plants located near Montevideo, and com- 

 menced the erection of a freezing plant with a capital of 

 4,000,000 pesos. The company soon became a leading factor 

 in the Uruguayan cattle market, and has a present capacity of 

 2000 steers and 3000 sheep per day. A Morris plant, kno^\^l 

 as the Frigorifico Artigas, has a capacity of from 1000 to 2000 

 steers, 2000 sheep and 500 hogs per day. 



