But having established the packing industry on as wide 
a scope as it then was possible to establish it, the pioneers of 
the business began to see the possibilities of its growth and 
they began to seek ways in which greater quantities of surplus 
might be cared for and whereby waste of product could be 
avoided. It was in that endeavor that refrigeration was 
developed. 
At first refrigeration was quite crude and it consisted 
pretty largely of warehouses constructed something like ice 
boxes, with the interstices between inner and outer walls filled 
with ice that had been harvested from the nearby lakes in the 
winter time. The value of refrigeration became immediately 
apparent and the packers availed themselves of the best 
engineers to evolve artificial refrigeration and refrigerator 
cars which would permit a nation-wide and year-around dis- 
tribution of their products. It was not until in the seventies 
that refrigeration reached the point where it may be said to 
have exercised such a vital influence on the industry as to 
make the work “packing” a misnomer in characterizing it, 
lor no longer were the major portions of products packed in 
oarrels as they once had been. 
With refrigeration came ability to utilize virtually every 
portion of meat animals and the development of by-products 
which have taken such a prominent, if not almost dominant, 
place in the economics of meat packing. 
The financial history of the packing industry is quite 
similar, indeed, to the chronological history of the story of 
its development. As the business grew beyond state borders 
or trafficking in provisions, a much greater investment was 
necessary to carry on the work. Armour and Company, for a 
considerable time after its formation, was a partnership and 
the partners were placing back into the business a major por- 
tion of their earnings each year. The necessity for a corpora- 
tion became apparent about 1900 because of the ramifications 
of the business having become so great and because of the 
facilities of operations and the economics of financing that 
would accrue to a corporate entity. 
There were branch houses to be maintained—the branch 
house system has grown from one house in 1869 to more