Report on the trade in refrigerated beef, mutton and lamb

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1800540760

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-185131

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report on the trade in refrigerated beef, mutton and lamb

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1925

Scope:: vi, 65 Seiten; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter II. Historical

Collection:: Economics Books

country to Great Britain—always excepting Ireland—but it possessed a long-established meat-packing industry. The trade with the British market, far from being an innovation in the seventies of the last century, was, therefore, in effect, a mere extension of a condition which had gradually and naturally arisen within the United States itself. Great credit, it is true, is due to the enterprise and commercial vision of the men who, between 1870 and 1880, entered the packing-trade and gave it its present character, but these men—Swift, Armour, Morris and others—owed much to the peculiar circumstances which gave them their opportunity. These circumstances were, briefly, the close settlement of the Atlantic States and the growth there of large industrial populations, on the one hand, and the steady westward movement of the cattle herds in search of cheap pastures, on the other; together they produced the economic environment which made possible a large consignment trade in meat within the borders of the country itself. In the development of this internal trade, there were three well-defined stages. First, there was the trade during the early settlement of the country and up to about 1850, with conditions somewhat similar to those obtaining in this country to-day where meat is produced near the centres of population. Butchers’ shops were individually owned and killing took place either on the butchers’ premises or on the farms themselves. The second stage came with the growth of population in the east and the concentration of cattle further west, when droving hecame necessary and with it the development of organised markets in the producing areas where farmers could dispose of their stock and unload on to other shoulders the responsibility for its movement from the farms to distant centres of consumption. The rapid growth of railroad systems, by forging a link between the two areas, emphasised the importance of such markets; they became convenient points of concentration and meeting- places for east and west. In due course, they gave rise to the expert marketer whose special study was values and who, unlike the farmer, was in intimate touch with demand and prices. He acted as agent for the farmer, advised him as to market conditions, advanced cash on cattle shipped, marketed it on arrival, took over the whole business of salesmanship and generally performed the functions of the middleman. During this time, considerable packing was taking place in the marketing centres, though mainly confined to pork products. In point of fact, the packing industry in the United States goes back to the seventeenth century when, for the West Indian trade and later on for the English trade, both pork and meat were packed for export in barrels—hence the term packing-house products ”’ which is still applied to all *“ dressed >> meat in the United States. With the concentration of live stock in the west, the packing- trade moved westwards also and during the winter months great quantities of hogs were slaughtered and packed in salt or

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