THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



531 



Of the production of wool no approximation to the actual 

 quantity can be made. Considerable domestic manufacture is 

 carried on by the German population, and numerous shipments 

 are made from obscure places, and never taken into account. 

 From Chicago the export of wool, for the year endiug Slat De- 

 cember, 1857, was 8,468,359 lbs. The agents of New York 

 and Boston dealers travel through the whole western country 

 collecting parcels, and so keen generally is the competition that 

 the commodity not unfrequently commands more than its real 

 import value. 



Tallow is not yet produced to any great extent, but as the 

 beef-packing business is developed, its importance as an ar- 

 ticle of western export will increase. Usually there exists a 

 fair margin for English shipments, and packers' tallow is now 

 of the choicest kind. Canadians at present absorb nearly all 

 the western surplus. 



It may be here remarked that the Canadian production of 

 live stock and hog and cattle products is extremely limited. 

 This is owing to natural causes, rather than to any want of 

 enterprise or thrift on the part of the Canadian people. The 

 wooded character of the province, as adverted to before, checks 

 grazing progress, and beyond running droves of hogs in the 

 bush, and keeping a fe.v cows and oxen, the Canadian farmer 

 has generally enough to do chopping trees and digging stumps. 

 The Canadian production of hog and cattle products is there- 

 fore not sufficient to supply local wants, and not likely to be 

 80 for years to come; and Canadian lumberers draw pork 

 supplies from Chicago and other parts, while in the winter 

 season the markets of London, Hamilton, Toronto, and Mon- 

 treal receive regular supplies of live hogs and cattle, dressed 

 beef and pork, and prairie game. 



Canadian pork, besides being extremely limited in supply, is 

 very much inferior to western pork, in consequence of the dif- 

 ference of the feed : the Canadian hog subsisting chiefly on 

 beech nuts and herbs picked up casually in the woods; while 

 the western hog is fed regularly, and almost exclusively, on 



Indian corn. While therefore the flesh of the one is firm and 

 fat and not greasy, the other is soft and flabby, and its fat 

 usually disappears while being cooked. So prime in fact ia 

 western pork that carefully cured hams, such as those met 

 with in Burlington, Iowa, and Cincinnati, are not in the least 

 inferior to York or Belfast ; while their market price is generally 

 little more than half. It is the same with bacon, and prime- 

 cured weatern will chalk-nge competition with the choicest Wilt- 

 shire. These statements may appear scarcely credible to 

 those familiar only with the rough salt bacon cured for the Irish 

 market, and who know nothing more of American hams than 

 the smoked or green shoulders so plentiful iu Liverpool. 

 But when it is considered that, every other thing beiug equal, 

 the breed of American hogs being the same as the breed iu 

 England, and the feed not inferior, it is easy to understand 

 that if rough bacon and ill-shaped hams are received from the 

 United States, better qualities may be received also. 



A considerable proportion of the western packing business 

 is in the hands of Englishmen, and parties resident iu the 

 north of Ireland. These repair to the United States towards 

 the close of the summer months, and after perfecting financial 

 arrangements in New York or elsewhere, proceed to the scene 

 of operations. When spring returns the busineis is given 

 over, and the parties leave the United States and return hoae. 

 It may be remarked that greater facilities, iu a money way, 

 are extended to this business than to any other in the United 

 States; and this circumstance is owinf? to the easy supervision 

 and check, and to the short time that intervenes between the 

 slaughter of the animal and the marketing of the product. 

 In the packing business there is really no refuse of any kind : 

 every sort of offal beiug readily convertible into money, and 

 operations may be suspended at any time. The usual financial 

 practice is to draw upon New York with attached freight bills 

 of lading, at sixty or ninety days ; and in general before the 

 drafts mature the hypothecation is released by sale at the cou- 

 1 signing port. 



EMPLOYMENT OF SORGHO AS FORAGE. 



[translated from THK FRENCH OF THE " JOURNAL d'AGRICULTURE PRATIQUE."] 



When in your columns, Mr. Editor, you opened an en- ; 

 quiry respecting the qualities of the sugar sorgho of China 

 as a forage plant, you ought to have received the observa- 

 tions of one of the oldest contributors of the " Journal of 

 Practical Agriculture," when to that title was united that 

 of being one of the first introducers of the sorgho. 



On principle, and in quality of member of the Imperia' 

 Zoological Society of Acclimatation, I have shared in the 

 distribution of seeds sent to the Society by M. de Montigny. 

 These seeds have ripened with me from the first year of 

 their introduction. I cite a fact, not to profit by it, for our 

 latitude (47" 36m.) will not permit us to expect a fructifi- 

 cation, constant, regular, and normal, but to let you see 

 that my experiments have from the first continued uninter- 

 rupted. A cultivator in Sologne, seeking improvements, I 

 have directed my attention to the sorgho, and its power of 

 vegetation, to call it to my aid as a forage plant ; at the 

 same time divesting myself of all preconceived ideas, 

 whether enthusiastic or disparaging. I shall not, therefore, 

 touch the question but to throw light upon honest researches. 

 I will not seek in the new plant a universal panacea for 

 cattle, or a dangerous poison ; but to excite a renewed ex- 

 amination. I will confess that the abundance of forage has 



won me as it has done others; but with certain facts before 

 me, duly stated, I stopped and reflected. Perhaps in the 

 absence of regular accounts we might have deceived our- 

 selves ; but with the figures before us, we can come to no 

 other conclusion ; at the same time requesting the prac- 

 ticians to renew their experiments carefully. 



The sorgho is not a violent poison for cattle ; but if the 

 effects observed, not only in my cultivation, but also in that 

 of many of my neighbours, be frequently renewed, we ought 

 necessarily to attribute to this plant a deleterious influence. 

 On a farm which I occupy myself, 25 horned cattle have 

 been fed exclusively on sorgho daring a month ; and from 

 the precise day on which it was introduced in feeding the 

 cattle, the journal of the farm shows a diminution of the 

 profit of the dairy by one-half, and the same decrease was 

 exhibited every month of feeding with sorgho. 



On the other hand, there was, in respect to one of the 

 cows, a case of wind, that caused its death. Any other kind 

 of food might have produced a similar accident ; but what 

 many of my neighbours have asserted is, the sterility of the 

 cows fed on sorgho. If these two facts, sterility on the one 

 hand and a diminution of half in the production of milk on 

 the other, repeated regularly in consequence of leeding the 



