FROZEN BEEF.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 995, 27 March 1891, Page 20

FROZEN BEEF.

Our exporters of frozen beef will have keen competition in Europe from a gigantic * trust ’ lately founded in America to supply the European markets with dressed beef. The Now York Shipping List says that a company has been formed in Chicago with ‘ millions of capital behind it,’ for the purpose of transporting live cattle from the great ranches in Wyoming, Utah, and Montana to Philadelphia, where immense abbatoira will be created. Capitalists in London, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago are said to be interested in this undertaking. The novelty of the enterprise consists in the method of transporting the cattle. Steel cara are being so constructed that there will be a passage on top from one end of the train to the other, allowing the stock to be fed during the journey. At present the loss in transit is about 10 per cent of the cattle, whereas in the vestibuled trains it is expected to be no more than 2 per cent. It. is also said that it will cost less to send live cattle to Philadelphia and kill them there for shipping to Europe than to kill them West and ship the dressed beef thence. We oannot shut our eyes to the fact that for quantity the Western American cattle raisers can beat us hollow. The new Company will be able to pour thousands of tons of dressed beef on the European markets. Big as the enterprise may seem, it need not frighten the cattle breeders of New Zealand. It is almost next to impossible to find beef in any part of the United States equal to the beef in this Colony when it is put to the crucial test—cooked on the table. We can equal even the best grazing lands in England in this respect. Wa can easily beat all the rest of the world. If we are to excel in our beef export we must strive to raise the finest meat possible. Scrub cattle, bush fed, untended and unoared for, will not the future be good enough for export. Better attention will have to be paid to the two great essentials in cattle —breed and feed. Our meat freezing companies will find that with the growing competition before them it will not pay them to purchase anything but the finest specimens of cattle. The farmers will find it to their advantage in the immediate future to improve as much as possible the quality of their stock. With the cooperation of intelligent farmers in this matter we need not fear that any American enterprise can, on the point of quality, spoil our frozen beef trade.