206 THE WORLD'S MEAT FUTURE 



live stock, it can easily bo seen that there are marked possi- 

 bilities of a big trade. The rainfall over the greater part of the 

 territory is sufficient to ensure the growth of nutritious grasses, 

 and the quality of fat produced by these grasses compares 

 favourably with the production on the prairies of Canada, the 

 United States, and Argentina. 



The Mexican National Packing Company, Limited, is about 

 the most favoured meat company in the world. Mexico was 

 noted as the possessor of the most faulty and out-of-date 

 system of dealing with meat that existed in any country of 

 equal importance, and in order to place it on a more sanitary 

 footing, and to enable the people to be provided with wholesome 

 meat, the Mexican Government granted the packing company 

 very extensive and valuable concessions. The people of 

 Mexico can now purchase clean refrigerated meat, and they 

 can purchase it at a lower price than they formerly paid for a 

 poorer quality of meat handled in an insanitary manner. 



Taking everything into consideration, the improving quality 

 of the cattle, the favourable climatic conditions, and the short 

 average rail haul to the packing houses, it is tolerably certain 

 that before long Mexico will be counted as one of the world's 

 big meat suppliers. It only awaits a more settled government, 

 which no doubt will come after the war, when the German 

 influence is removed, to make this one of the most important 

 and the closest big beef supply to the British Empire and the 

 United States. 



I shall never forget the trip I made some years ago from 

 Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico. The railway most of the way 

 rises five feet in every hundred, and the scenery everywhere is 

 magnificent. At Esperanza, near the top of the range, we, as 

 usual, broke our journey for the night, when we were ban- 

 queted by the native population. We passed en route the 

 magnificent mountain of Orizaba, and from then on travelled 

 over a vast grassy plateau to the capital. We were conveying 

 big consignments of Mexican dollars to the coast for shipment, 

 per Royal Mail steamers, to China. They were eventful and 

 exciting journeys indeed. 





