Meat Industry By-Products. 



39i 



other words, the packer would make a loss if the meat were the 

 only produce of the animal. His profits are all derived from 

 the utilisation of the by-products. 



The meat packing business is one that has grown to an 

 enormous size in the last few years, and has practically driven 

 the butchers, as slaughterers, out of all towns in the United 

 States, where the butcher is now simply a retailer of the goods 

 sent to him in refrigerator-cars owned by the packers or whole- 

 sale butchers. No butcher can compete with a modern packing- 

 house where everything is utilised (except the gastric juice), and 

 where the profit is made and expenses paid out of the by- 

 products, which are practically an expense to the small butcher. 

 These packing-houses deal in all sorts of by-products, as well as 

 in meat, poultry, apples, vegetables, butterine, and eggs, as they 

 have cold storage of their own, and men in the country who can 

 buy other things besides cattle for them. 



Many of these large packing-houses have been shipping cattle 

 on the hoof, but this trade has been far from profitable lately, as 

 the United Kingdom will only take the best, and these are in 

 very short supply here. 



By- Products of the Meat Industry. 



As noted in the article on " The Meat Industry of the United 

 States" (p. 384), the whole of the profits of the great meat packing- 

 houses in the United States are derived from utilising the by- 

 products of the slaughtered animals. None of the packing- 

 houses, not evei-f the largest, handle all these products themselves, 

 but sell the raw material to other firms, although they have 

 often a large interest in the factory. 



From these by-products, most of which are wasted by small 

 butchers, the following articles are made : — Albumen is made 

 from the blood, and is used for calico printing, tanning, and 

 sugar refining. The blood is congealed into buttons, and also 



