C)2 Report upon the Agricultural Features 



excellent. Three of tliem weiijlied respectively 809, 835, and 

 850 lbs., and a fourth, a cross lietween a Sjrmier sow and Suffolk 

 pig, weighed 907 English lbs. live weight. All were three years 

 old, and exhibited as fat. 



Mr. Paget, who has had a long experience in Transylvania, 

 informed me that English swine are not fitted for the occupation 

 of hunting acoi'ns, and grubl)ing up roots. This is a misfortune 

 in a country where acorns form a staple winter food for pigs. 

 Our swine have lost power in their nasal muscles through high 

 breeding and ringing, and they cannot now throw up the ground 

 with the requisite vigour to find food and roots. Also the short- 

 ness of their legs is considered a fault. A sow must be suffi- 

 ciently long in the leg to wade through a foot deep of snow. If 

 short in the leg, her paps are very liable to be cut off by the 

 snow. These objections, valid though they be in Transylvania, 

 cannot be held as applying to other parts of the Empire, and it 

 is more than probable that, as in Austria and Germany, so also 

 in Hungary, we shall find an increasing demand for English 

 breeding-swine. 



Mr. Paget further informed me that Transylvania was formerly 

 supplied, to a great degree, with short, high-backed, long-haired 

 pigs from Wallachia, of bad quality, and feeding very hardly, 

 \Vithin the last twenty years the Si/rmier race has been ex- 

 tensively introduced. This race fattens easily, and at the com- 

 pletion of its second year arrives at a weight of from 240 to 480 

 lbs. It bears the extremes of climate well ; is enabled by its 

 strength of snout to root in the woods, and seek for acorns, beech 

 nuts, 6ic., and to feed upon stubbles during the autumn. Large 

 landowners frequently keep 50 to 300 or 400 sows, and in 

 extreme cases even as many as 1000. All are required to drop 

 their pigs at one time, /. e. within ten days of each other, and 

 this generally takes place in January. The swine are sold either 

 at 9 or 18 months old. 



Show of Implements. 

 In no department of the Vienna Exhibition did Great Britain 

 so completely take the lead as in Agricultural Machinery. We 

 may say, without fear of serious dereliction from absolute truth, 

 that British agricultural implements, or implements constructed 

 upon British models, were in quiet possession of the field. As 

 yet, the representative of one of our leading firms informed 

 me, they simply ignore foreign competitors, unless American 

 makers come under that designation. It was singular to notice 

 the crude designs and rough finish of many of the non-English 

 implements ; and on the other hand, it was interesting to note 

 how certain firms had been content to accept English guidance, 



