Two kilometres southward from Villa Independencia, in Fray-Bentos, Department of Rio Negro, is the great establishment of "_Liebig's Extract of Meat Co._" which forms by itself an important center of population.
It was founded in the year 1864 by M. Gibert. The first exportation of 230 kilogs of extract of meat got to Antwerp in November of the same year, and Baron Liebig declared that it surpassed all his hopes. Soon over 918 kilogs were exported monthly. In the year 1866 the Company was founded in London, and M. Gibert had all the machinery made in Scotland for the establishment, which began working in May, 1868. All the world knows now the extract, and its use is everywhere adopted, in the hospitals as well as in the barracks. At the Paris Exhibition in 1867 the highest prizes were given to M. Gibert for his _Extractum Carnis_, this extract being the only product out of 75,000 sent to the Exhibition rewarded with two gold medals. In Vienna also in 1873 it won the great gold medal over all the other systems employed in Australia and other countries. M. Gibert died in 1874. The establishment has gone on as prosperous as ever.
It possesses great and valuable buildings with powerful steam engines to put in motion the great machines destined to all the different preparations. The _galpon_ or shed where the animals are skinned and cut up is a first-class one and permits the killing of 1,000 animals per diem. During the killing season of 1891 208,800 animals were killed, and in 1892 156,200. The extract exported during the year 1890, represents, according to the customhouse statistics, 820,670 kilogs, and during 1891, 711,564, giving a value the first year of $1,677,408, and the second year of $2,134,692.00
The establishment is provided with great platforms for the drying of all the materials necessary to prepare the guano or artificial manure, with spacious sheds and machinery for reducing the materials to powder, and also another shed for the grinding of bones.
Over 7,500 tons of coal and 3,500 of salt are employed yearly.
The different works in the establishment employ more than 600 persons: and the population all around the establishment is of 2,500 souls.
It has good quays where ships of all draughts can come and be quickly loaded by powerful steam-cranes.