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Show UTAH LIVE STOCK. The establishment of a packing plant in Salt Lake City, now under way, will remove the heaviest handicap which the live stock interests have had to encounter. Heretofore it has been necessary for owners of live stock to ship their product to the large eastern centers, there to be killed and dressed, and tho product is then returned here to the consumers, con-sumers, at exorbitant prices. The shipping of the cattle entails a heavy cost of transportation, besides be-sides feeding and care en route. On arrival at destination, des-tination, the cattle are necessarily about L 5 per cent less in weight, appearance and quality than when they started on their long journey in the pent-up cars. The buyers for the packing houses can then .get them at practically their own price, especially since the beef trust was organized, as the owners cannot afford to reship them home. The same trust, which thus fixes the price of beef on the hoof, can fix the price of meat to the consumer, with the result re-sult that the price of cattle has been lower than ever before, and the price of meat higher. The railroads, rail-roads, getting the benefit of the shipment of cattle one way and of dressed meat the other, naturally have favored the large packers, and have so fixed rates as to make it unprofitable to ship cattle to local lo-cal markets. The agitation for fair rates on rail" roads will therefore have an important bearing on this business. The raising of cattle in Utah fits in very well with fanning. The fanner owning an irrigated farm in a valley or on a bench usually has a hill or mountain behind his farm which he can get at a very low price per acre, and which furnishes good feeding ground for the cattle. Above his water line he can raise lucern or alfalfa for feeding during I winter, when necessary. His small irrigated plat raises enough crops to more than make up for the lost area above, and thus tho fattening of cattle on the latter is clear gain. The only point is to find a good market for the cattle when ready, and the local packing plant will do this. ' Already the live stock industry in Utah is more important than most people are aware of. The actual ac-tual value of the live stock is upward of twenty million dollars, the assessed valuation being upward of eight millions. In cattle, Utah county leads, and in sheep Sanpete leads. At present the cattle and sheep industries are about evenly divided as to values, val-ues, but the cattle industry will naturally increase more in proportion, for the reason that the open ranges are gradually diminishing and sheep raising is not so profitable on smaller areas. These two industries constitute three-fourths of the entire live stock industry of the state, the remaining one-fourth one-fourth being made up of horses and mules and swine; the latter constituting only about 8 per cent of the total. It is hard to understand this, as swine can be sold at a good profit. It is reasonable to expect ex-pect that this branch of live stock raising should increase rapidly, and instead of importing pork products for the east, enough will be raised for home consumption and shipment as well. Utah pork is, well known as being superior to that of most other places. With the normal growth of this intermountain in-termountain country, the live stock interests -of i Utah should. With proper handling as above outlined, out-lined, multiply rapidly, and Salt Lake City be the ! distributing center for the entire intermountain j region. This. would naturally stimulate and build ; up industries which use the hides and offal, such as j leather industries, soap, glue works, etc. It would j greatly stimulate the stock yards business and make j this the buying center to which would come the j representatives of eastern packing houses, who j would then have to compete on our own ground. j |