THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE, 



17 



THE TRADE IN THE HORNS OF ANIMALS. 



The trade in onimal products of a miscellaneous 

 character is a much larger one than is generally sup- 

 posed. There are several of the minor products 

 dealt in, which offer an interesting field for inquiry, and 

 for collecting the scattered data which can alone serve 

 to furnish an approximate idea of the aggregate value 

 and importance of the trade considered in a mercantile 

 and a manufacturing point of view. 



The horns of animals, for instance, wild and domestic, 

 may seem of a very secondary importance, and yet the 

 trade in them, home and foreign, rises to a very 

 respectable position in the statistical returns. Indeed, 

 the rights and privileges of the hornworkers and horn- 

 pressers have in various reigns occupied the prominent 

 attention of the Legislature. But there is no fear in the 

 present day " of the trade being ruined, and the busi- 

 ness lost to the nation," as was the cry when the statutes 

 Edward IV. c. 8, and 7 James I. c. 14 were passed, 

 forbidding the sale of horns to foreigners, and prohi- 

 biting the export of unwrought horns. We not only 

 use up our own lai-ge home supply of horns, but 

 import on the average fully as many more, namely, 

 about 3,500 tons per annum. 



While many of the former iisesof horn for glazing pur- 

 poses, for drinking-cups, for hornbooks, and for the 

 sounding instruments of the bold forester, have 

 passed away, other and more elegant and varied ap- 

 plications have been found for this plastic material, 

 insomuch that the trade Directories show us half-a- 

 dozen or more workers in horn, forming separate and 

 distinct classes of the trade. 



Large as the present use of horns and hoofs is, we 

 believe that many further manufacturing purposes may 

 be found for them, and that they will become even still 

 more important than they now are in a commercial 

 point of view. 



Although the largest trade application of horn is for 

 knife-handles, combs, and umbrella tops, still the 

 other uses are also extensive, and as numerous as the 

 varieties of liorn which come into the market, or 

 bristle on the head of the animals characterized by 

 this frontal appendage. Ox, buffalo, and deer horns 

 are those mostly worked up j but the horn of the rhi- 

 noceros, ram, and some few other animals, are also em- 

 ployed to a limited extent. For the spiral tube of the 

 antelope, little or no commercial use seems yet to have 

 been found. 



The study of the composition, formation, and growth 

 of horn is an interesting one, and well deserving of 

 careful investigation, in view of the manufacturing pur- 

 poses to which this substance may be applied. In com- 

 mon parlance, any hard body projecting from the head, 

 terminating in a free, unopposed point, and serviceable 

 as a weapon, is called a " horn." But the composition 

 of these differ materially. Professor Owen well ob- 

 serves, " Even the weapons to which the term ' horn' 

 is properly or technically applied consist of very dif- 

 ferent substances, and belong to two organic systems, 

 as distinct from each other as both are from the teeth. 

 Thus the horns of deer consist of bone, and ai"e pro- 

 cesses of the frontal bone; those of the giraffe are in- 

 dependent bones or ' epiphyses,' covered by hairy skin; 

 those of oxen, sheep, and antelopes are 'apophyses' of 

 the frontal bone, covered by the corium, and by a 

 sheath of true horny material; those of the prong- 

 horned antelope consist at their basis of bony processes, 



covered by hairy skin, and are covered by horny 

 sheaths in the rest of their extent. They thus combine 

 the character of those of the giraffe and ordinary an- 

 telope, together with the expanded and branched form 

 of the antlers of deer. Only the horns of the rhinoceros 

 are composed wholly of horny matter, and this is dis- 

 posed in longitudinal fibres ; so that the horn seems 

 rather to consist of coarse bristles compactly matted 

 together in the form of a more or less elongated sub- 

 compressed cone." 



The horn of the rhinoceros, like its skin, when po- 

 lished and in thin layers, is as transparent and mottled 

 as tortoise*hell. These horns are often obtained 2 feet 

 long, and 10 inches in diameter. In India they have the 

 reputation among the Mohammedans of being an an- 

 tidote to poison; and in older times they were the 

 fashionable scent and oil-bottles of the Roman dames. 



It is commonly believed that the horns of the ox 

 acquire an additional ring every year after the third, 

 but the addition of annuli is far from being annual in 

 other species. Many rings are gained in one year's 

 growth of the ram's horns, and in those of the ring- 

 horned antelope. The length of the horn forms a 

 distinguishing characteristic in some breeds of cattle ; 

 but whatever improvements may have been effected in 

 the form and character of the carcase, by the modifi- 

 cation of food and habits, it does not appear that we 

 have been able to superinduce any improvement or 

 alteration in the size or texture of the horns. Indeed, 

 the horns of the wild animals would seem to be more 

 prominent than in the domesticated races. 



The immense horns of the African or Cape buffalo, of 

 the Java buffalo, and the Arnee buffalo of India, are tha 

 most valuable, and the extent of the trade in this class of 

 horns may be estimated from the fact that about one 

 million buffalo horns were shipped from the port of 

 Madras last year. As we derive two-thirds of our 

 foreign supply of horns from the East Indies, it is not 

 improbable that the existing disturbances may cause a 

 deficiency in the shipments thence, owing to the inter- 

 ruption of internal communication, and the withdrawal 

 of large masses of the population from their ordinary 

 peaceful occupation of collecting and bringing in the 

 horns to the mercantile houses. 



South America (chiefly Brazil and the Argentine 

 Republic) furnishes us with a considerable quantity of 

 ox horns, and we also receive several hundred tons a 

 year from the United States. For buffalo and stag 

 horns we are mainly dependent on India : of the former 

 we import fully J, 400 tons per annum. Averaging 

 these at 1,400 horns to the ton, this would show a 

 mortality of a million buffaloes a year, besides what 

 may be locally used up, or sent to America and the 

 European ])orts. Of deer horns the Sheffield cutlers 

 and others work up about 400 tons, chiefly derived 

 from Ceylon and the peninsula of India. The "fall" 

 from at least 300,000 head of deer is required to 

 supply this quantity. 



Of the aggregate annual quantity of horns entering 

 the market, estimated at 0,400 tons, about one-fifth is 

 manufactured into combs, valued at from i:'300,000 to 

 £400,000 ; a large quantity is worked up into knife 

 and cutlass handles ; while there are many other mis- 

 cellaneous uses, in shoe horns, scoops, drinking horns, 

 &c. The waste pieces of stag horn are boiled for size 

 in the cloth-making districts; and the pitli or slough 

 of other horns and hoofs is crushed for tillage, when 



