A 
60 Pic: CURING IN tHE UNITED SifAces 

packing industry, but in the early sixties this business, foliow- 
ing the movement of the maize fields, began to move further 
west, first.to Chicago, which has since been the chief centre, 
and more recently to Kansas City and Omaha. 
The city which has gained most pre-eminence in the pack- 
ing industry in the Western States is Chicago. Fifty years 
ago the population of that city did not warrant the establish- 
ment of packing establisments upon a large scale, and the 
position of Cincinnati and Louisville was considered far 
more advantageous. Within a dozen years, however, these 
conditions changed completely, and the natural advantages 
of Chicago’s position became manifest. The broad plains of 
Illinois and of the trans-Mississippi States were planted 
with corn, and the hogs were raised in great numbers, while 
its position at the head of Lake Michigan and at the con- 
verging point of the great East bound railroads gave Chicago 
an advantage in transportation which was rapidly utilised by 
enterprising packers. The immense advances which have 
been made.in packing, the methodical, mechanical, clock-like 
method of killing and packing, the utilisation of all parts 
of the animal and of ail by-products, the advances in 
refrigeration, the introduction of summer packing, the 
improvements in transportation, and many other reforms 
have been intimately associated with the rise of packing in 
Chicago, and trom 1862 this city has remained indisputably 
the chief pork packing centre of tiie world. 
Though the tendency in the packing industry is toward 
the continuance of the present westward movement and the 
supersession of Chicago by cities lying still nearer the corn 
belt, the advantages possessed by Chicago can never be 
entirely lost, and that city must remain for a long time the 
natural outlet, and consequently the natural packing centre, 
for a large territory. But the advantage of locating the 
packing industry as near as possible to the place where the 
hogsare raised, however, hasled to the riseof packing establish- 
ments to the west of Chicago, notably at Kansas City and 
Omaha. The prospects for the packing industry at Kansas 
are said to be excellent, and its growth has been very 
rapid, due largely to the nearness of the cornfields 
