The sheep are killed at the rate of ten every minute, and it is only seven minutes from the time the live sheep is seized until it is ready for freezing. There is a long string of carcasses steadily flowing out of the killing station into the cooling room and later on from there down to the freezing chambers, where the temperature is eight degrees above zero.
In three days the sheep are as hard as stone. Tap one of the carcasses as we stand in a freezing room. It resounds like a drum. Take one down and rest it on the floor; it is so stiff that it stands alone. My fingers feel frost-bitten as I take notes, and we are glad to get out.
After a look at the freezing machinery, which the manager tells us came from America, we go to the other departments of the works to see what is being done with the by-products. In one place sheep tongues are being canned to be shipped all over the world. The cooking is done in great vats in which the water is kept boiling by steam pipes. The white tongues bob up and down in the boiling water and from time to time bare-armed men take some out with pitchforks and put others in their places.
In another room we see workers rendering fat; in another they are dressing the sheep heads, and in others they are pulling wool from the skins and spreading it out to dry. A curious department is that where the blood and bones are made into fertilizer. The dried blood is roasted in a great cylinder several hundred feet long. On the floor I see a pile of blood as big as a small haystack. It smells like ammonia, and my eyes water as I look.
This blood is very valuable for manure. For a long time it went to waste in most of the slaughter houses and freezing plants of New Zealand. Then some Americans came down and made a contract for the product. The New Zealanders soon saw that the foreigners were making a good thing out of their blood money, and concluded to take the profit themselves. When the time came for the renewal of the contract they refused, and now, I am told, this and the other by-products of the Christchurch plant pay about all of the expenses of its operation.
As we walk through the works I ask the manager to tell me about his labour and costs. He replies that the average earnings of the men are about twenty-five dollars for a forty-four-hour week. Except on Saturdays the men come to the factory at eight o’clock in the morning and work until five in the afternoon, taking an hour off for dinner. They have in addition to this what are called “smoke-o’s.” These are recesses of ten minutes twice a day for a smoke. The foreman fixes the times, which are usually ten o’clock in the morning and three in the afternoon. These smoke recesses are common in all New Zealand factories. In places where many women are employed, they stop work for tea every afternoon.
New Zealand will probably remain an agricultural country, dependent on sea traffic for her manufactured goods. She has plenty of deep bays and inlets for harbouring even the largest ships.
To the sheep station owner the rabbit is an unmitigated evil, but to trappers, freezing works, and skin exporters, it is a valuable animal.