mammoth packing-houses
are the outgrowth of the success of the application of mechanical
refrigeration, where any day of the year a market is made for live
stock. But few years have elapsed since the vast herds of South American
cattle had no value, except for their hides, horns, and tallow, and the
great bands of Australian sheep for their wool. Now immense
refrigerating plants are in operation, freezing the beef and mutton,
with fleets of ocean steamers equipped with refrigerating machinery and
storage rooms filled with frozen meat for European markets. From the
United States the dressed-beef traffic is of large proportions. Storage
speculators are always ready buyers at remunerative prices for butter
and eggs, that in value exceed the great wheat crop of America.

To fruit-growers, especially those engaged in apple culture, cold
storage is attracting more than common interest, as it has been
demonstrated a grand success in the preservation of apples from three to
six months longer, in good condition, than in natural storage that is
subject to the changeable influences of the atmosphere. At the same
time, the apples retain their original and individual flavor, color, and
crispness.

Cold storage, or mechanical refrigeration, arrests fermentation and
decay, or, better stated, prolongs the life and keeping qualities.

Of the advantages gained, it offers a place of safe-keeping for future
market, and affords a protection for the grower if market conditions are
not favorable; such as an overstocked market, consequently low prices,
caused largely and influenced by many other varieties of fruit that are
in season while the apple crop is being gathered.

Again, the fact of the existence of cold-storage houses has brought into
the field speculators, which has a wholesome influence, and oftentimes
strengthens the markets and lessens the quantity that would of necessity
be forced on sale at an earlier period at a great sacrifice, which is
the situation this year, where the enormous crops of New York, New
England and Michigan apples are being sold at from fifty to seventy-five
cents a barrel (including barrels) placed aboard cars, for the want of
proper and sufficient storage facilities to relieve part of the burden.
No such condition or low price has yet been felt by the Western grower.

There may be years when the buyers will look far into the future and
think they can see visions of long prices, when it would be wise for