PORK 237 



centers pattern after Chicago in so far as is practical, 

 since this is the largest pork-packing center in the world. 

 It may be well, therefore, to refer to the industry as it 

 is carried on there, where seven millions of hogs are 

 slaughtered annually. It is here that the industry has 

 been carried to its present high point of specialization. 



Slaughtering. — The slaughtering of hogs takes place 

 to a limited extent on the farm, to a much larger extent 

 by the local butcher, and to a still greater extent by the 

 pork packer. The volume of slaughtering by some of 

 the larger packing plants is enormous. In order to ac- 

 commodate the volume, methods are employed which 

 insure rapidity of slaughter. In these larger plants the 

 slaughtering takes place at the rate of several per minute. 

 The usual plan is to have a hoisting wheel to which the 

 hogs are shackled by a shackler with chains that are 

 hung to the large wheel. This wheel revolves and ele- 

 vates them and runs them off onto the sticking rail or 

 bar automatically to the sticker. Expert stickers can 

 stick as many as ten head per minute. From the sticker 

 the hogs pass to the scalding vats and automatic scrap- 

 ing machines, the scraping being finished by hand. They 

 are then beheaded, gutted, split, washed down and hung 

 in the cooler. 



Variations in carcasses. — Aside from differences in 

 weight, the carcasses show marked differences in form 

 as they hang in the cooler. Some are wide and compact 

 showing high condition, while others are long and nar- 

 row. Great differences are manifested in particular in 

 the region of the ham and loin. In the halved carcasses 

 the various ratios between the amounts of fat and lean 



