State Agricultural Society. 345 



HOGS VERSUS WHEAT. 



There is a growing fear in the minds of many that California may- 

 grow more wheat than she will be able to dispose of. Say they, in 

 effect: " Every year the breadth of land sown under that cereal is rapid- 

 ly increasing, and not only at home with us, but in countries that are 

 our competitors in the world. England is our only great market, and 

 we cannot reasonably hope to sell her more than we do now. What 

 then are we to do with the further surplus that we are certain to have?" 

 To this it might be easily answered, that the more wheat grown in Cali- 

 fornia, the more will be consumed by its own population and by those 

 with whom it has commercial relations — that more wheat necessitates 

 more people engaged in its cultivation, a larger amount of manufactures 

 used by them, a larger number of people at home and abroad engaged 

 in the production of these manufactures, and consequently more mouths 

 to feed than before. It might, perhaps, also be proved that the increased 

 consumption in this way would be sufficient to counterbalance the in- 

 creased yield. And it could easily be shown that there are many other: 

 markets besides those of Great Britain to which we could export. 



But admitting, for the sake of argument, that California will soon 

 reach in wheat the point of overproduction so far as regards export to 

 foreign countries, it by no means follows that it is necessary to abandon 

 the further cultivation of that cereal. Wheat may even then be grown 

 and exported in the shape of hog products, such as pork, baoon, hams, 

 lard, etc., and with as much profit to the producer and the intermediate 

 merchants as now. At the present price of wheat, say one dollar and 

 sixty cents per cental, the farmer, after deducting the oost of transpor- 

 tation, bags, etc., does not receive at the utmost more than one dollar 

 and ten cents per cental. Now wheat will produce hog products at the 

 rate of one pound of meat, lard, etc., for every four pounds consumed. 

 Thus a cental of one hundred pounds would produce twenty-five pounds 

 of meat. Pork on foot being worth at the present time five and a half 

 cents per pound at the ranch, a cental would, thus converted into pork, 

 be worth one dollar and thirty-seven and one half cents. So that at the 

 present price of pork on foot, it would be as profitable to use wheat in 

 producing it as to obtain one dollar and eighty-seven and one half cents 

 in San Francisco for the latter. And t save in exceptional seasons, as 

 the last, this price cannot be very greatly exceeded in San Francisco. 

 So much for the paying aspect of hog raising. 



Next as to f.he market, and the price there. Great Britain, the great, 

 consumer of the surplus grain,, meat, etc., produce of the world, imports 

 annually from the United States over three hundred million pounds of 

 hams, bacon, etc. In addition to that she imports largely from other 

 sources. The United States exports, or will export this year, at the rate- 



