Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

sold in England for a much higher price than the grass-fed ones they will not go to the trouble and expense of feeding. The present tendency toward mixed farming may bring it about to a certain extent, but the country is at present so divided into "zones" for this and that purpose that corn raising and steer feeding are not very likely to be done on the same estancia to any great extent for several years. The increasing demand for such animals, both in England and the United States, is an influence which will sooner or later bring about their production in Argentina, where they can undoubtedly be for many grown for years very cheaply. Some feeders tried corn feeding on a small scale several years ago, with excellent success, but they had difficulty in finding any buyer in Argentina who would pay the difference. One breeder tried the sending of a few on his own account, and he says that he made a profit of over $10 gold per head after charging off all possible expense for feed and labor.

THE MANUFACTURE OF TASAJO DECLINING.

The saladeros are showing rapid falling off in their production of tasajo, or jerked beef, because they can not sell their product at a price that will warrant paying the prices for animals in competition with the frigorificos, the beef-extract factories, the export trade, or even the city market. One great factory has been gradually made over from a jerked-meat establishment into one for the manufacture of beef extract, for which a better quality of meat is used, while only the parts undesirable for beef extract are used for tasajo. One of these companies has just paid a 20 per cent dividend.

MEAT SUPPLY OF BUENOS AIRES.

The beef supply of the city of Buenos Aires comes from one great market, where from 1,200 to 3,500 animals-steers, oxen, cows, heifers, and calves are brought daily and sold by various commission men to the city butchers. Part of the sales are at auction, but the majority are private. The killing is all done in a place provided by the city and is under municipal inspection. Sheep and hogs, as well as cattle, are all killed here, each man killing on his own account. There is a tremendous waste, especially during the summer, as there is no refrigeration, and all meat is sold the day it is killed, or surely the next day. Many butchers buy carcasses from others who kill by wholesale and supply retailers. If the retailer, when ordering his supply the day before, overestimates the next day's business, he suffers a loss, and it often happens that the price of meat begins to fall before noon and by night is half what it was in the morning, especially if the day has been warm. The meat, besides being usually from inferior animals, is tough and stringy and full of water, shrink

3369-No. 48-03—3

ing heavily in the cooking. It has had no time to cool, and being grass-fed is watery. Besides, it is sold by the chunk, not by weight, and is cut up in much the same manner as meat is cut for dogs or menagerie beasts. Such a thing as a sirloin or porterhouse steak is unknown in Argentina. The carcasses being hacked to pieces without regard to the choice cuts and sold at a uniform price for the whole, good and bad, makes it very difficult to get a good piece, though sometimes tender, juicy steaks and attractive roasts may be had in the best restaurants and hotels, but it is by no means a sure thing. Several efforts have been made to enforce the municipal law requiring meat to be sold by the kilo; but the butchers are opposed to it, and customers who demand the right to buy by the kilo soon learn that it does not pay, for they get more if they buy by the piece. All these conditions would seem to offer a good opening for a modern fresh-meat establishment in the city of Buenos Aires, supplying good chilled and seasoned meat, properly cut up, with more economical slaughtering and according to better methods.

The prices obtained at the Buenos Aires cattle market vary greatly, according to the quality of the animals offered and the daily demands of the market. For steers the prices run from $30 to $75, the average being probably not far from $50 to $60. For oxen, about the

same.

For cows, $20 to $60, with occasionally a few at higher pricesthose having a little better blood that have been picked up for breeding. Heifers sell at $14 to $30 and calves for from $3 to $18, the average being somewhere around $8. Many of the cows, heifers, calves, and steers sold in this market are not slaughtered, but are bought to stock other estancias. This happens very often at the extremes of seasons or when some part of the country has suffered a drought. Under such conditions estancieros find their camps overstocked, so they keep as many animals as they dare generally more than they should-and send the rest through this market to some more fortunate part of the country where there is feed.

Prices of meat in the Buenos Aires markets at present (May, 1903) are quoted as follows in paper money per pound and piece, but, as a matter of fact, the prices paid are less, because meat is sold by the lump cheaper than it would be by actual weight:

Beef. -Loin, 20 cents; roast, 25 to 32; boiling, for puchero, the poor man's national dish, 16; steaks, 20; rump, 16; breast, 9 to 13; ox tongues, 80 cents each; Hamburg steak, 22; bones, 9.

Veal.-13 to 36 cents.

Pork.-32 to 45 cents, and ham, imported, $2.04, domestic, 68 cents, the latter being very inferior.

Mutton.-13 to 45 cents.

Lamb. 18 to 36 cents.
Turkeys.--$3 to $6 each.

[blocks in formation]

Martinettas (similar to quail but larger).-$1 to $1.40 a pair.
Partridges.-30 cents per pair.

Pigeons.-60 cents per pair.

Rabbits.-$1.

SHORTAGE OF COWS IN ARGENTINA.

Returning to the fat-stock show: Some good, fat cows were shown, both Shorthorns and Herefords, but these are only a minor incident of the show and are usually those that have proved useless for breeding purposes. The prices obtained were very poor. The best ones, weighing from 1,400 to 1,500 pounds, were bought by one freezing company-which ordinarily kills no cows of any description-- at $62 to $77, and others went for $41. The sacrifice of cows and heifers is one of the most deplorable mistakes now being made in Argentina, and is so regarded by the majority of the most progressive breeders; yet it goes on, as one may see any day by going to the "mataderos,' the municipal slaughtering place in connection with the Buenos Aires cattle market. To be sure, a good proportion of these cows are of a very inferior class-"clearings," often, from estancias where the stock is being improved. But the number of cows sold for beef is due, in a large measure, to the demand for beef that can not be supplied in any other way and is another evidence that the number of cattle in the country is overestimated and has probably not increased much, if any, since the census of 1895, which placed the total number at 22,000,000. The country is short of cows, and it can not afford to kill them so long as they are useful for breeding. A proposition to restrict the killing of cows to those over 6 years old met with derision. The Government would like to do something to check this destructive practice, but as yet has not found a practical way to begin it, and the same is true in regard to calves.

These conditions indicate how strong the demand is for cows of good blood. The expositions show it by the small numbers of cows and heifers shown or sold. Those who have good cows do not like either to get them in condition to satisfy show demands or to take the risk and undergo the expense of taking them to the shows, and any good breeder who has good cows never thinks of selling them, but rather of watching for a chance to buy more. High-grade cows, as stated elsewhere, are eagerly sought for, and good prices will be paid for them, and have been paid, and are now being paid whenever they are offered.

SALES OF HORSES IN ARGENTINA.

Of the 413 horses in the May horse fair, only a few were worthy of special notice, and these were the light coach and saddle horses. The prices for the great majority of animals sold were very low, but for some of the prize animals, and for the attractive light coach and saddle horses, the prices seemed to be satisfactory, as prices go in that country. The horse business, while it has improved much, is not in ast flourishing a condition as it is likely to be. Hard times, bicycles, electric street railways, and even automobiles, so it is said in the papers there, have hurt the horse business. The highest prices obtained were for coach horses, the lighter ones bringing the best prices. The first prize winner in the light coach class, a hackney Anglo-Norman sorrel mare, brought $2,100, while the third horse in the same class, a gelding from the same breeder, sold for $2,000, and the second prize. winner from another breeder, $1,000. The third prize pair in coach horses, Yorkshire-American cross, sold for $1,300. A heavy Shire coach horse, second prize winner, aged 5 years, from an imported sire and purebred mare, sold for $700. The first prize Anglo-Norman saddle horse sold for $300, the second for $250, a few others at $300 to $400, and a number of attractive ones from $100 to $150. A few hackneys brought $600 and $700, but most of them went for much less-around $100 and even less-and hackney mares sold from $45 to $90. The Clydesdales brought very poor prices, and were a rather "logy" lot, most of them, though, of fairly good breeding. Perhaps the fact that grain is not often fed to horses there may have had something to do with this appearance of many horses. The first prize Clydesdales, in groups of 6 colts, sold for $150 each, the second group for $195, and the third for $225. As with the bulls in the fine-stock show, the opinions of buyers do not always agree with those of the judges who award the prizes. Other Clydesdales, pure and of mixed blood, sold as low as $35 and $36, and many went at $55 to $100, though some also commanded from $120 to $180. A great many campbred mares and ordinary geldings found slow buyers at $40 to $60, and even less than the lower figure. Some sold for only $15 each. These horses were not worth more than they brought, for an ordinary horse may be bought any day for $30, or less than $14 United States money. The "cocheros" (drivers of ordinary carriages for hire) in Buenos Aires, who abuse their horses shamefully, find it cheaper to buy a new horse than to feed or take decent care of the poor old animals they often are seen driving.

Some splendid mules were shown-large, strong animals that were shipped to South Africa and sold at a good price. Two lots were especially noteworthy, the result of a cross of a Poitou jack on

Clydesdale mares. But an estanciero who has tried them says that

his colonists found them too slow and lazy and inferior to the smaller but more energetic mule of the country. Still the large mules are in in, good demand, and a few big American jacks could be disposed of to excellent advantage. Some Texas stockmen who went to Argentina a few months ago to start a stock ranch and do general farming near Lake Nahuel Huapi, in the southwestern part of the Republic, brought two big jacks, which excited a good deal of admiration, and experienced men wanted to know where more such animals could be had. The mule business was a very profitable one for Argentina during the Boer war, and the country, especially the northern part, in the province of Córdoba, has been pretty well drained of mules. The business is practically over now, but breeding is going on, and the demand for mules and for jacks is good.

SALES OF SHEEP IN ARGENTINA.

Only 240 fat sheep were exhibited in the May show, for at that time sheep breeders were rather discouraged, or had been for a year. The prices, both of wool and mutton, were very low. Plenty of sheep were sold in the early part of the year 1902 for $1 to $1.50. Fat sheep, fit for export, were bringing only $4 to $5.50, and the market for these was confined to the three freezing works. There is record of the sale of three lots of these sheep, 120 in all. Two lots of 40-one of Lincolns and one of Hampshire Downs-sold for $5.50 each, while another lot of 40 Lincolns went for $4.80.

ANIMAL SANITARY REGULATIONS.

The Argentine Government devoted much effort during the year 1902 to the task of persuading the British Board of Agriculture, not only that Argentina is free from foot-and-mouth disease, but that there is no danger of its being brought into the country from its neighbors, especially from Uruguay, and in turn sent again to the foreign cattle markets in England. Many times it seemed that the English ports, closed to Argentine cattle and sheep in April, 1900, were about to be opened, but some new objection from the British Board of Agriculture would prevent it. The influence of the English meat producers was very great and the English breeders seemed to be in great fear of another outbreak from imported infection. But at last the Argentine Government was able to comply with the conditions imposed by the British Board of Agriculture, and on February 3, 1903, the bars were let down, permitting Argentine sheep and cattle to be sent to the English ports alive under conditions similar to those required of importations from the United States. The conditions required of the Argentine Government were not severe, once the fact was established, as it undoubtedly was, that foot-and-mouth disease did not exist in Argentina and had not for a year been within

« ForrigeFortsett »