They followed the bodies of the cattle from the slaughterhouses where they are dressed, into the cooling rooms. These are simply great refrigerators. Wagons come to the cooling rooms and haul loads of the meat to butcher shops, hotels, and depots. Within a few hours it finds its way to smaller cities and towns in all directions. A great deal of meat is shipped even to Europe. Why does not Europe produce its own meat?
Fig. 12.—Cooling Beef.
When the meat has thoroughly hardened in the cooling rooms, it is sent to the curing rooms, where it is cut up and packed. Each person here does his particular work from morning until night.
Ramon learned, to his surprise, that every part of the animal is used. Hair, hide, horns, hoofs, teeth, bones, and even blood, are made use of.
Fig. 13.—Splitting Backbone of Hogs.
Most of the hogs which enter the great meat-packing cities are raised in the corn belt.
The sheep need much pasturage, and so the largest flocks are found in the Western and Southwestern states. A single herder may take care of several thousand sheep. His faithful companions and helpers are intelligent shepherd dogs. After a great flock of sheep has fed on an area, hardly a green thing is left. The people in the part of the West where there is little rainfall, object to the pasturing of sheep around the head waters of streams, because when the vegetation is removed the water runs off too quickly.
