As a matter of fact it may come somewhat of a surprise to learn that British thought is far in advance of American practise, as manifested by the stockyards at Chicago in regard to the utilization of appliances and process for the treatment of meat residues. The interests at the mammoth plant were approached with the latest British development in this line--the solvent extraction process described in a previous chapter--it being recognized that its introduction to the American stockyards would apply the seal of highest approval to the invention and represent a great achievement for the British interests which had evolved and perfected it. It possessed every virtue likely to make appeal, more particularly the means of enabling the American packers to add to their already huge profits. The process was investigated, and its superiority over the methods in vogue was frankly conceded. But the Chicago industry firmly declined to embrace the invention, not from feelings of hostility, but because the interests concerned had developed their own plant along lines, and to a degree which would not readily permit a revolution. To have introduced the new idea would have been to disorganize the whole business of by-product reclamation and would have demanded the revision of methods, knowledge, practice, and routine. Questions of cost did not enter into the issue at all. The packers merely declined to disturb the system they had standardized and had carried to such a level of perfection. But the packers were not wholly opposed to progress. Although not willing to introduce the system into their plants, they were quite ready to turn over their wastes, after they had extracted as much as they could of material value therefrom under their system, to the British interests. The inventors accepted the proposal, and to-day one may witness the strange and anomalous spectacle of British interests taking over the residues from residues from the packing plants for further treatment, and conducting the unusual method of trading to their financial profit. It was confidence in the superiority of the new idea which brought such signal success. Yet this exploitation of wastes from wastes is not peculiar to Chicago. It is even being practised to a limited degree in these islands, which suffices to prove that certain quarters are fully cognizant of the wealth awaiting to be won from waste, and that it pays to conduct the process to the recovery of the uttermost retrievable ounce even from such material.