Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1877 — Exports of American Beef. [ARTICLE]

Exports of American Beef.

Thk recent exportations of beet to England have been small, and with the decrease of trade comes lack of confidence in the enterprise itself Louis Samuels said to a Tribune reporter, at his abattoir, • Forty-fourth street and First avenue, that no money had ever been made by shipping beef. If beef was wanted in England at the time it was shipped, it brought a good price, but if it could not be sold at once it became a dead loss. ”It isn’t like a live bullock,” said Mr. Samuels, “ which can be kept in these stables on a little fodder, and Englishmen have no such refrigerating facilities as we have. Beside, ice is too high there, and it don’t pay to use much of it on beef when other expenses are so great. When Mr. Eastman tried the experiment of shipping beef to England two years ago, he had to fight the prejudice that existed against the article; and when the business got a fair start the price of cattle went up in this country, without a corresponding increase Un England. At present it costs about two cents more a pound to export American beet than English beef costs to-day. During the past two months we have only made three or four shipments of 150 cattle each. We have ten vessels with refrigerators, however, and as long as there is any hope of the cloud lifting we don’t want to sink any money in a hasty withdrawal.” E. E. Eastman, whose abattoir is at Sixtieth street, North River, said: “ There was a little money in the business last year, but there is none now, and caunof be as long as prices are higher in Amer ica than in Eugland. During the past two morths we have shipped about 800 cattle a week, which is a small number for us. Two years ago we could make money at it, but we have thinned out the cattle here so much by exportations that prices have naturally risen.”— lf. T. Tribune.