PACKING INDUSTRY. The slaughtering of cattle, sheep, and hogs, and the utilization of their carcasses is an important industry in many American cities, especially in the middle West. The choicer parts of the animals are shipped in refrigerator cars and vessels to the markets of this country and Europe for consumption as fresh meat, while other parts, especially in the case of the hog, are cured, by smoking or salting. The fatty portions are converted into lard and commercial grease by rendering processes. (See DicEsTEn.) The bones are converted into glue or fertilizers, and the hoofs and horns (see Iloax ) are used or sold for other purposes. The term packing industry, which was originally applied to the curing and packing of the flesh of the hog, has been extended, with the develop ment of the industry, to include all the mul titudinous operations connected with the utiliza tion and transformation into merchantable form of the different parts of animals slaughtered for food, in so far as these operations are con ducted in a single plant.
The history of the packing industry begins in New England. in the seventeenth century, where large quantities of pork were packed in barrels for foreign trade. The first packing house in the West was established in Cincinnati in ISIS. Cincinnati continued to lead in the industry for many years. but is now surpassed In- Chicago, while in many other Western cities. including Milwaukee. Kansas City. Saint Louis, and Omaha, the industry has risen to great im portance. Prim. to 1872 most of the slaughter ing was clone during the winter months. About this time chilling processes began to be developed, which have since been brought to such a state of perfection that animals are killed and their products prepared for the market with equal success and in equal amounts in mid-winter and in 'dog-days.' Indeed, the development of the packing industry is largely due to the applica tion of artificial means of refrigeration (q.v.), for at the foundation of all successful meat curing is the thorough chilling of the carcass.
Before cold storage of meat was introduced, it was customary to ship the living animals to Eastern markets, and the long and tiresome jour ney was both cruel to the animals and harmful to the meat. Now the meat. after thorough chilling, is shipped in refrigerator cars to Eastern cities and placed in cold-storage warehouses owned by the packing company, from which it is delivered to local dealers, or if it is to be delivered in Europe, it is transferred directly from the refrigerator cars to specially constructed chill-rooms in the ocean steamers, to be deliv ered in London, Liverpool, or Glasgow.
Labor-saving devices have been adopted at every step in the packing industry. The animals are killed, "hooked by the nose to an endless chain, passed through scalding, vats, and then through an automatically adjusted scraper which deprives them of hair and bristles in a few seconds. The animals are then hoisted, head down, upon an inclined rail and disemboweled, beheaded, Washed, trimmed, and whirled to the chill-rooms at the rate of twenty a minute." In dressing hogs, about 20 per cent. is offal and the rest is used as meat. of which only about 10 per cent. is sold as fresh meat. The other parts ore clued, usually by pickling in brine for seven or eight weeks, and then smoking for twenty-four hours. The most profitable part of the industry is the manufactnre of sausage. The meat used is chiefly trimmings, which are obtained from all parts of the establishment, a large part of them being head and hoof trimmings. The meat is chopped, mixed with potato flour and water, in the proportion of 40 per cent. meat, 40 per cent. potato flour. and 20 per cent. water. Certain spices are also added, including sage, pepper. salt, ginger, and mustard. The intestines, which are used for sausage casings, are cleaned by ma chinery. They are filled with the sausage by means of a stuffing machine, which consists of two cylinders, the steam cylinder and the stuffing cylinder, and a piston rod directly connected with the piston rod of the steam cylinder. The sausage. casings are slipped over a tube attached to the open bottom of the stuffing cylinder, and through this orifice the casings are filled at a rapid rate.
Another important part of the pork-packing industry is the manufacture of lard (q.v.). Two grades of lard are made—leaf lard and steam lard. In the leaf lard of commerce, not only the pure leaf, but all sorts of trimmings front the belly of the animal are used. Steam lard is made from scraps taken from all parts of the animal, particularly from the feet, or even the feet themselves and the head bones.
In dressing cattle. the parts intended to he sold as fresh beef are allowed to cool for forty eight hours and then shipped. In the canning of fresh beef, inferior meat is used, either poorer grades of cattle or poorer cuts. Since 1891 the whole packing industry has been under vigilant Government inspection.