A RANCHMAN'S RECOLLECTIONS 



worth, Kans., formed a partnership with Matthew 

 Ryan, and built a substantial small packinghouse 

 for the slaughter of hogs and cattle on the bank of 

 the Missouri River, which stream formed a cheap 

 sewer as well as cheap ice supply. They specialized 

 on hogs during the winter months, and cattle dur- 

 ing the cattle season; that is, from mid-summer to 

 December, doing a limited fresh meat business, and 

 running largely to barreled beef and dried beef hams. 



A lot of negro women and children could always 

 be seen coming from the packinghouse, carrying 

 fresh livers, hearts and kidneys, which were given 

 away. In modern technical parlance these organs 

 were the "pluck," which is now a material item in 

 modern packinghouse salvage. In looking back I 

 do not understand why it was not thrown into tank- 

 age, which they were then making, nor why they did 

 not use in the main everything else in the offal. 



Whittaker bought a half-section of land near my 

 father's place. It was a rather light-soiled tract. 

 He began hauling tankage to scatter over it. That 

 was my first sense of the packer drive to eliminate 

 waste. It was literally a sense, because the first 

 intimation came through the nostrils and the second 

 through the ears from the expressions of outraged 

 neighbors, who sought the courts and tried to have 

 it declared a nuisance, but most of them lived to see 

 an almost sterile farm develop into one of the best 

 producers in the country. I do not know whether 



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