AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
FOR THE 
Farm, Garden, and. Honseliold. 
“AGIIIOtTLTPKE IS TIIE MOST HEALTH FPL, MOST PSEFPL, AM) MOST NOLLE EMPLOYMENT OF M AN.”— Washington. 
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY, 
PUBLISHERS AND PROPRIETORS. 
Office, 245 BROADWAY. 
ESTABLISHED IN 1842. 
Published also in German at same rates as in English. 
( TEEMS: S 1 .5 0 PER ANNUM IN ADVANCE ; 
J 4 Copies for 85; 10 for $1‘4 ; go or more, $1 each ; 
j 10 Cents additional must be sent with each Sub- 
( scription for postage. — Single Number, 15 Cents. 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in April, 1817, by the Orange Judd Company, at the Office of the Librarian Gf Congress, at Washington. 
VOLUME XXXVI.—No. 5. NEW YORK, MAY, 1877. NEW SERIES—No. 364. 
THE FOREIGN 
MEAT TRADE . — Brawn and Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
We have frequently referred to this new business 
of exporting beef and mutton, which promises 
to have a most important influence on our system 
of agriculture. That our readers may have some 
idea how this business is carried on, we have pre¬ 
pared the accompanying engravings, to illustrate 
the methods of preparing the meat. In figure 1 is 
shown the scales where the cattle are weighed, not 
singly, but in a drove of 40 or 50 at once. This 
scale has a capacity of 100,000 lbs., which is equal 
to the weight of 50 head of 2,000 lhs. each. None 
but the best cattle are taken for this trade, and 
most of them, will go over 1,500 lbs. each. When 
weighed, the drove is taken to the slaughter pens, 
as shown in figure 2, and when there are very rapid¬ 
ly reduced to beef. The method of preparing the 
carcasses is 6hown at figure 3. A steer is hitched 
by the hind legs to a rope, and is instantly hoisted 
out of the pen on to the dressing floor, where it is 
killed, skinned, and halved. The sides of beef are 
moved to a cool room, to hang for a few hours, 
and the quarters are then sown up in canvass bags, 
after which they are removed to the steamship, and 
hung up in the refrigerator, (see fig. 4). The re¬ 
frigerator (fig. 5, page 169) is an air-tight compart¬ 
ment, lined with non-conducting felt; in the center 
of it is an ice-honse, seen in the engraving. A cur¬ 
rent of air is drawn into the ice-honse by means of a 
fan, operated by a steam engine. The air, cooled by 
passing through the ice, is forced out at the bottom 
of the ice-chamber, through ventilators, (seen in 
figure 4,) and after making the circuit of the room, 
and cooling the meat, the air-current is drawn out 
through a door at the upper part of the room, (also 
seen in figure 4,) and is again forced through the 
ice, and then again through the meat-room. What¬ 
ever moisture is gathered by the air from the meat, 
is condensed in the pipes which pass through the 
ice, and escapes along with the waste water from 
the ice through the drain, shown in the plan, fig. 5. 
In this way the air is cooled, dried, and purified, 
and the meat, kept in the most perfect condition, 
reaches its destination in far better order, than it 
frequently appears in at the shops in this country. 
The favor with which this exported meat—mutton 
as well as beef—is received in England, is a guaran¬ 
tee that the business will increase as long as we can 
produce the cattle and sheep at the price at which 
they now sell in the market. It is very certain that 
the prices of beef would decline rapidly here, if it 
were not that the surplus is thus exported ; as so 
many as 2,000 head of heavy cattle, taken from our 
markets in a week, must necessarily have a ten¬ 
dency to lower prices, if they were all to he sold 
here on an overstocked market. This fact, and that 
there is a profit now in the business, would show 
that the trade is likely to continue and increase. 
