Organizing to supply Manila all her fresh beef

Media

Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title
Organizing to supply Manila all her fresh beef
Language
English
Year
1928
Rights
In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
Fulltext
April, 1928 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 9 As I read the ballad Kipling has given us of the Bolivar, I find I am not as familiar as I should be with the locale. I must turn to the encyclo­ pedia and look up (1) Sunderland and (2) the Start. Lo, as I leaf through the volume Sub to Tom, I find two excellent essays on the tariff and taxation. As I am just rummaging—one must be at ease in the study of language, I pause to read them. One goes, quite properly, the way his mind leads him; he does not foolishly attempt to spur his memory. What a wonderful work of man is an encyclopedia! But at last we are at Sunderland, 261 miles northwest of London, at the mouth of the Wear river; a community of 142,000 inhabitants, fishing, marketing, wresting a living from the sea and exporting Sunderland coals since the reign of Henry VII. Sunderland docks cover 200 acres; they include graving docks up to a length of 441 feet. There are shipbuilders aplenty in Sunderland, ship­ owners too; and life is sometimes hard, and busi­ ness dull enough, so that a group of hardboiled owners might order the Bolivar off to Bilbao overloaded with steel rails and coal and covered with putty and insurance—not caring they a single red herring if she should founder. The encyclopedia is not equal to “the Start,’’ but it will be beyond the bay, where the Bolivar reached comparative safety on the high seas. Organizing to Supply Manila All Her Fresh Beef ORGANIZING THE LIVESTOCK ASSOCIATION Left to Right:—Ram6n J. Fernandez, Ben J. Ohnick, attorney, Richard Paradies, Amando Velilla, attorney, S. D. Winship, F. C. Gearhart, Pio V. Corpus, Guy Stratton, F. W. Maage, F. G. K. Sander, Tom&s del Rio, H. P. Strickler, N. S. Saleeby, F. W. Prising, and Joseph Wernick. Ohnick and McFie are attorneys for the association. Officers chosen are: H. L. Heath, president; Pio V. Corpus, vice president; Tomfis del Rio, second vice president; F. G. K. Sander, secretary-treasurer. Directors: Health, Corpus, Sander, del Rio, Stratton, Saleeby. The men who have organized the Philippine 1925....................... 916,795 Livestock Association represent an important 1926....................... 1,021’169 growing Philippine industry producing taxable 1927....................... 1,136,640 wealth in the form of livestock on the otherwise nonproductive pasture lands of the islands. They believe they can keep Manila supplied with fresh beef if the law is enforced which pro­ hibits the importation of beef cattle. Manila consumes 3 to 3-1/2 million kilos of fresh beef yearly. During the decade ending with 1924 the average yearly consumption was 3,310,337 kilos. Consumption is increasing somewhat, but so are the herds, while a higher type of beef critter is being bred on many ranches. The Manila market required about 9,000 kilos of fresh beef daily. A contract given a temporary extension of three months by Gov­ ernor Gilmore, and therefore expiring at the end of July, permits one importer to supply 40 % of the market with live cattle from Australia, some 3,700 to 4,000 kilos daily. The association asks for the definite abrogation of this contract and ad­ herence to the law. Governor Stimson is to act upon this question, on which he has a report from his staff and G. C. Howard, trade commissioner, based upon data from the bureau of agriculture. Here is how cattle have been increasing in the islands: Year No. of Cattle 1918 ....................... 600,173 1919 ....................... 678,525 1920 ....................... 758,551 1921 ....................... 806,186 1922 ....................... 808,237 1923 ....................... 873,995 1924....................... 887,841 It is colloquial, I conclude. “Felt her hog.” Hog, v. i. (Naut.) To become bent upward in the middle, like a hog’s back:—said of a ship broken or strained so as to have this form. Hog, v. t. (Naut.) To scrub with a hog, or scrubbing broom. We have now three hogs in our pen, and might add more. It is important to realize that Kipling had them all in his pen too; his power of graphic description and terse, eloquent phraseology comes of his specific use of words. He could never have used them with such assurance had they not been his own. This is the explanation of his vivid style. “Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her strake.” Strake, n. (Shipbuilding.) One breadth of planks or plates forming a con­ tinuous range on the bottom or sides of a vessel, reaching from the stem to the stern; a streak. Let us not lightly pass the simile by, “* * * like drunken men pounding * * Pounding! Pounding home arguments, pounding out jigs and tunes, and demands for more liquor. Thus it is that without deliberate description Kipling pictures the sea’s incessant buffeting of the reeling ship. —W. R. Indian Grade Cattle: S. D. Winship’s Herd, Bukidnon, Mindanao The figures are from the bureau of agriculture, they are furnished from the statistical depart­ ment, presided over by Mr. Pena, at the request of Dr. Youngberg, the director. D. H. Hahn, inspector at the matadero, reports that the native cattle now reaching the Manila market average around 120 kilos dressed weight; that it requires from 70 to 80 animals a day to supply the Manila market, and that the industry can easily supply this number. It means 29,200 head per year, on the basis of 365 days and 80 head per day. As the yearly figures indicate, the increase in native cattle last year was 114,480 head, or four times the requirements of the Manila market. The Journal believes that Manilans are generally unaware of the improvement of native cattle in recent years by the introduction of foreign strains, partic­ ularly the introduction of rinderpest-resistant Indian stock. For this reason a typical new herd is shown in one of the illustrations, that of S. D. Winship, in Bukidnon. Beef from such animals is as good as can be desired. But there are of course larger and better herds, that of the Agusan company being the largest in the islands. This herd too is grazed principally in Bukidnon, a fact that suggests the long distance from Manila of much of the local cattle supply. The men in the industry realize they have problems to solve, an acute one being the shipping problem; from long distances the cattle lose weight rapidly, coming, as they do, directly from the pastures to the loading stations. Director Youngberg advocates graining beef cattle for a month or six weeks prior to shipping, to harden the fat, gentle the animals and reduce losses from shrink­ age on the long voyages to Manila. Here is a problem. To breed up all the herds is another, for there are too many undersized cattle still in the islands. Stock shows such as that held in connection with the Philippine carnival help the industry a great deal, but what would undoubtedly help more, and return in taxes far more than it would cost, would be a series of substantial cash prizes— a resort to the method proved successful time and time again by the Amigos del Pais yi Spanish times. The prizes were worth the winning, and the honors conferred worth striving for. Sincerity in behalf of agriculture dictates a careful study of the successful projects of the Amigos del Pais, to whom the debt the country owes can never be repaid. Echoes of their work are heard today, not only in the cattle industry, but in, for instance, the recent reestablishment of a coffee growers’ association in Batangas with headquarters in Lipa. Millions of pesos will grow out of this within a few years.