The American Cattle Trade. 
363 
in good seasons for a 900-lb. steer, when on the drive two 
months. The average cost of these drives is about l.s*. %d. a 
head per hundred miles. The freight rates from points in Kansas 
and Texas are rather greater, relatively, than farther North. For 
Colorado and Wyoming territory, a rapidly growing cattle country, 
the favourite shipping point is Cheyenne, on the Union Pacific 
Railroad, 1000 miles west of Chicago. Railway freights are 
much higher west than east of Chicago, and it costs, for example, 
to move a bullock from Cheyenne to Chicago, 21. , this cover- 
ing attendance, feeding, and the terminal charge for placing 
the animal in the yard ; the freight alone is, by contract, for 
not less than ten carloads, 31s. per 1000 lbs. The journeys 
west of Chicago are harder, trains slower, rests less frequent. 
Between Colorado or Kansas and Chicago, there are usually but 
two changes, and sometimes only one. There seems to be less 
shrinkage in weight of North- Western cattle by car-transportation 
that in those of the South- West : their flesh appears firmer, and 
they are graded higher, and command better prices at Chicago. 
So a steer which would sell at the shipping-point in Texas 
for 3/. 12s. to 4/., brings 4/. 12s. to 5/. at Cheyenne, Wyoming. 
Last December a lot of 1000 lbs. Colorado cattle were bought 
at Cheyenne at an average cost of a trifle less than 4/. 16s. 
a head, brought to New York by contract for 3/. Is. each 
(making 11. 17s.), and sold at an estimated dressed weight of 
450 lbs. for nearly A^d. per lb., or 8/. 2s. apiece. There was 
evidently no spare margin in this transaction, but the animals 
were ten days en route, with but three stops, had a hard passage, 
and lost over 100 lbs. of flesh each ; whereas if they had arrived 
in good order, they would readily have sold at 21. more per head, 
affording a handsome profit. And had the same animals been 
held over in the corn-States until the present time, at a cost of 
4/. per head (total 11/. 16s. to 12/.), they would now bring in 
New York 15/. to 16/. each. 
The shipment to England of American dressed beef, which 
began hardly two years ago, and has since reached such propor- 
tions, attracts attention to the effect of this new trade upon home 
markets, and the provisions for meeting this outside demand. 
The exports, thus far, have been shipped from Philadelphia, New 
York, Boston, and Canada ; but New York is the centre of the 
trade, a single dealer having sent out an average of 1000 car- 
casses a week from that port for weeks in succession during 
the present year, and it is natural to go to that point for infor- 
mation on the subject. 
Twenty years ago, about 150,000 beeves were received at 
New York during the year, and the average price was 5d. 
per lb. From that the receipts have steadily increased, until 
